


Familiar Evil

by xTRESTWHOx



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse), ゼロの使い魔 | Zero no Tsukaima | The Familiar of Zero
Genre: Action/Adventure, Conspiracy, Crossover, Evil Corporations, F/M, Fantasy, Horror, Science Fiction, Suspense, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:35:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 62,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26922982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xTRESTWHOx/pseuds/xTRESTWHOx
Summary: Louise's summoning of her familiar was supposed to be the ultimate, final proof that she was truly a mage. But, instead she somehow found herself in a place called Raccoon City on an entirely different world. A world where magic didn't exist, and when that world falls apart, she and the boy who was supposed to be her familiar must fight for their lives against the evil around them.
Relationships: Hiraga Saito/Louise de la Vallière
Comments: 15
Kudos: 22





	1. Chapter 1: Beginnings and Introductions

**Familiar Evil (ZnT/Resident Evil)  
Chapter 1: Beginnings and Introductions **

[~][~]

_Tristain Academy of Magic, Kingdom of Tristain_

Professor Jean Colbert watched as yet another student of his performed their summoning spell. The excitement in the air was palpable as everyone waited their turn, some more patiently than others, while those who already summoned their familiars took this early opportunity to start bonding with them. Most of the familiars were simply animals. A few dogs or wolves, some had cats of various kinds and there were of course quite the colorful array of birds. There were also several frogs, toads, and a mole that were brought to their new masters. Others summoned far more fantastical creatures such as Kirche von Verbst who had managed to summon a salamander, which perfectly suited her fire magic affinity in Colbert’s opinion. Another student had a managed to summon a bugbear, which was more of a floating eye than an actual bear but the young boy was affectionately hugging it regardless. At the moment, the most impressive familiar belonged to Miss Tabitha, who had managed to summon a dragon. Despite how impassive Tabitha usually was, he could tell that she was pleased deep down.

He had to admit, this day was always one he looked forward to every year. To the second-year students of the renowned Tristain Academy of Magic, the Familiar Spirit Summoning Exam was both the day when they would meet their lifelong partners as well as determine what their elemental affinity truly was. As part of the ritual, familiar spirits were brought forth from all over the world to serve as their guardians, companions, and more. The type of familiar summoned also served as definitive proof of the mage’s affinity. Those who summoned a bird or other airborne creatures were wind mages. Denizens of the earth, such as moles, were summoned by earth mages. Fish, frogs, and other aquatic creatures were without fail summoned by water mages, while fiery creatures such as salamanders were summoned by fire mages. Some were always disappointed at what the spell brought them, as well as what the spell implied about their magic, but the spell itself was a sacred ritual coming from the Founder Brimir himself, so its result was absolute. Colbert was already eyeing a few that he would have to remind of this fact, but at the moment he allowed himself to smile as yet another spell was successfully completed.

“Well done, Malicorne. Now, please complete the ritual so that we may continue,” Colbert said proudly as the portly boy held up a small grey owl on his arm.

“Do…do I have to…?” Malicorne asked, smiling awkwardly while keeping the owl away from his face as far as his arm could stretch.

“Yes, Malicorne,” Colbert reminded, his voice stern yet gentle.

Malicorne de Grandple gulped loudly, then summoned up the courage to close his eyes and slowly move his face towards the owl. The boy was clearly terrified that the owl might attack him, but Colbert knew that wasn’t going to happen. The familiar summoning spell always managed to bring the most suitable creature for the mage, both in terms of magical affinity as well as having the right temperament. It wouldn’t do for a mage to summon a dragon, only for said dragon to immediately bite his or her face off as they came close to a kiss.

Finally, Malicorne was able to seal the ritual with a kiss to the top of the owl’s head. For a brief moment, a small light shined out from the point of contact, and underneath the downy mass of feathers Colbert knew that a familiar rune had been magically engraved onto the owl’s skin. As Malicorne pulled his head back, he let out a smile as the owl recovered from the slight pain the spell unfortunately inflicted upon it, then the creature hooted happily while flapping its wings.

“I think I shall call you…” Malicorne started, then stopped to hum and think of a name. He then nodded his head again, and declared, “Cubasil!”

Colbert smiled once again as Malicorne walked back to the large gathering of sophomores behind him. There were the standard congratulatory remarks from his close friends, while others such as Guiche de Gramont peppered their praise with more self-congratulatory remarks about how their familiar was clearly superior. It was something he had grown to expect, and so long as the self-imposed competition between students didn’t grow out of hand, he saw no reason to put a stop to it.

He then looked around at the students and asked, “Is that everyone? Has everyone completed the test and summoned their familiar?”

At first, no one answered, and with a quick accepting nod he said, “Alright, then. Students, you are now—”

“Professor, wait,” Kirche von Verbst called out, raising her hand. The Germanian girl had a knowing smile on her face, and with everyone’s attention focused squarely on her, she stated, “I believe that there’s still one more person who hasn’t gone yet.”

At first, Colbert was confused as to whom Kirche was referring to. Then he realized it as well as the rest of the students as they parted ways, allowing him to see a short, petite girl with long pink hair trying her best not to be seen. It had been succeeding thus far, but now that Kirche had brought attention to her, everyone’s eyes were focused squarely on her. Instead of the excited expectation that the other students had towards each other, their gazes and expressions housed only nervousness or outright contempt towards the poor girl.

Colbert sighed, closed his eyes, and shook his head before asking, “Louise, have you taken your test yet?”

Louise looked at her professor, then she steeled herself and resolutely declared, “No, Professor. I have not.”

“I see. Well then, please step forward and complete the spell.”

Without breaking her stride, Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière stepped forward, walking past the students right to where she was supposed to complete the spell. At the same time, she was trying her best to ignore the scathing remarks the students were making behind her back, and Colbert couldn’t help but frown as he overheard them.

“Isn’t that the Zero?”

“She’s going to fail, just like every other time.”

“Why is she even here? She’s not even a mage.”

“I heard she’s not even a noble, just a commoner adopted into the Vallière family.”

“Whatever. At least we’ll be done with her after this.”

Louise couldn’t help but flinch at the biting words, even as she knelt over the ground to draw the summoning circle. Before the mockery could continue any further, Colbert barked to the students, “That’s enough! You will all be quiet as your classmate takes her test. Am I understood?”

The other students immediately clammed up, and although Professor Colbert couldn’t see Louise’s face, he knew she was grateful for the intervention. She continued to draw her circle, which Colbert couldn’t help but notice was immaculate in design. That was always Louise’s strong suit, a thought shared by all of her teachers and tutors. When it came to understanding magical theory, Louise was second only to Tabitha among her direct peers. But it was when she tried to put her vast knowledge into practical use that everything fell apart. For some as of yet unknown reason, every single spell Louise would cast had spectacularly failed. Without exception, each of her spells resulted only in an explosion, whether it be trying to create a simple spark of fire or even lift up a piece of paper with wind magic. It all ended the same. No one knew why, and not even the best tutors the Vallière family could afford could solve her predicament, which had been plaguing her since childhood.

Which brought her to him and the academy, now. Although Louise wasn’t admitting it, she and everyone else knew that this was her last chance to prove that she was, truly, a mage. They had given her an entire year to turn things around, but she hadn’t yet. If she couldn’t complete the Familiar Sprit Summoning Exam, a spell that was supposed to work for every mage regardless of power or affinity, then she truly was hopeless. Colbert would no longer be able to protect her, and she would be expelled and sent back home where she would be married off to some nobleman to live a comfortable life. He couldn’t imagine the immense pressure she must be feeling, but he forced himself to remain neutral. Despite his care for the girl and her plight, his duty as her professor came first. It would break his heart to do so, but if she failed the spell, he would do what he had to.

Finally, with the circle completed, Louise stood up and backed away, raising her wand and closing her eyes to begin the chant. At the same time, the other students took a few cautious steps back, not wanting to be caught in whatever explosion they were certain was coming their way. Colbert understood their concern but remained rooted to where he previously stood, wanting to provide at least some reassurance to his student.

“My name is Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière,” she began, pointing her wand towards the summoning circle she had expertly crafted. “Pentagon of the five elemental powers, heed my summoning...and bring forth...my familiar!"

No explosion came, and at first Colbert thought that perhaps she had finally succeeded where she had previously failed. But, to his dismay, nothing came. The circle was inert, unchanged, and when Louise opened her eyes to see what she had brought up, her face fell.

“Louise,” Colbert gently said, prepared to do the one thing he didn’t want to do, but before he could say anything, Louise scrunched up her face and started over once again.

“My name is Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière,” she declared, this time much more forcibly. “Pentagon of the five elemental powers, heed my summoning...and bring forth...my familiar!"

Once again, nothing happened, and Louise looked as though she was about to cry. With a sad frown on his face, Colbert stepped forward and gently placed his hand on her shoulder to say, “Louise, I’m sorry, but…”

“Professor, please. Just give me one more chance. I know I can do it, just…please,” she begged, which surprised him. Ever since he had met the girl, she had never been one for begging. Her pride as the daughter of the Duchess Karin de la Vallière, the legendary Heavy Wind, was ever present, which only grew more pronounced as her failures mounted up higher and higher. He strongly suspected it was a defensive mechanism she had concocted over the years, and if she failed this spell, it would completely crumble, and take her along with it.

Colbert knew that he wasn’t supposed to allow this, but once again his sympathy for the young girl forced his hand. He sighed and shook his head, then said, “Alright, you can have one more chance. But, if you fail, you won’t get another.”

“I understand, Professor. Thank you,” Louise said, giving him a thankful nod as he returned to his previous spot. At the same time, the other students began murmuring among themselves, clearly not liking what they felt was a display of favoritism.

“She gets to go three times? That’s absurd!”

“Why does Colbert tolerate her? If I was him, I would have jumped at the chance to finally get her out of here.”

Before the murmuring could grow louder, Colbert loudly tapped his staff onto the ground. The students got the signal and silenced themselves once again, although he felt a few harsh glares sent to him and Louise. Colbert ignored them, instead focusing entirely on Louise as she attempted her third and final summoning. Only this time, instead of repeating the customary spell that everyone else used, Louise sighed deeply before beginning to chant something he didn’t recognize.

"My servant that exists somewhere in this vast universe,” she boldly declared, hoisting her wand skyward as everyone else looked on in utter confusion. Like him, they had never heard this incantation before, and were left perplexed.

“My divine, beautiful, powerful familiar! I wish and assert from the bottom of my heart! Answer my guidance!”

Louise finished the spell by gently waving her wand in a circle, then pointed it straight in front of her. This time, after a second’s pause, the air in front of her exploded. Colbert was knocked down, with the rest of the students similarly affected. The courtyard was filled with black smoke, and he could hear everyone groan and cough as he recovered and began funneling the smoke away.

“Gag-gah! Just as expected!” a student declared while coughing into his fist. Other students were similarly coughing and making crass remarks regarding her infamous reputation, but Colbert ignored all of that to instead focus on his apparently successful student. His heart felt elated at what he assumed to be her first true success, proof that she actually belonged here.

Then the smoke cleared some more, and Colbert felt his excitement turn to shock. Instead of seeing Louise standing over her summoned familiar, as he had expected and hoped, he saw only an empty courtyard. There was nothing there, only a small patch of disturbed grass where her magical explosion went off. His shock turned into horror, and he ran up to the spot while clutching his staff tightly.

“Miss Vallière? Where are you?” he called out, looking around to try and find her. It was at this moment that the rest of the student body began to notice her sudden disappearance, and their annoyed murmuring gave way to confused silence.

“Miss Vallière, this isn’t funny! Come out right now!” he demanded, hoping that she had merely run off for some reason. No one answered, and his eyes narrowed to the size of pinpricks as an intense fear gripped his heart and refused to let go.

“What…what happened?” a student fearfully asked.

“Louise?” Colbert heard Kirche quietly ask, along with a few other students who began to realize the implication of what had just occured.

“Louise?! LOUISE?!” Colbert shouted one final time, but to his dismay, she did not answer. It was then that he realized that Louise was no longer there, and he sharply turned around to the rest of the students and yelled, “Return to your dorms immediately! Tabitha, alert Headmaster Osmund and the other teachers, then go straight to your dorm! None of you are to leave until I say so!”

“Yes, Professor,” Tabitha quickly replied, then hopped on top of her dragon Sylphid to fly up to the center tower at the heart of the academy. The rest of the students began to quickly return to their dorms, fear and confusion gripping them just as it did to him. Kirche von Zerbst, to his surprise, was the last one to leave as she stared at the spot where they last saw Louise with a look of horror etched across her face.

“Miss Zerbst, return to your dorm now!” Colbert ordered, which snapped Kirche out of whatever trance she was in. With one final nod, she turned around and ran back to her dorm.

Colbert turned his attention back to the courtyard as Kirche ran off, and he began casting every single scrying spell he could think of to try and ascertain his wayward student’s location. The only consolation he got was that there wasn’t any blood on the ground, which he prayed to the Founder meant she was still alive.

But every spell came back empty, and to his dismay, it was as though Louise Vallière was never there at all.

~

_August 17 th, 1998 1:05 PM_

_Raccoon City, Arklay County, United States of America_

Saito Hiraga hummed to himself as he walked along the bustling sidewalk, listening to the Backstreet Boys on his Walkman while he tucked away his laptop underneath his arm. It was a bulky, heavy contraption, and it had taken him an entire summer to save up enough money from chores and his part-time job to actually buy one, but it had been worth it. His own personal gateway to the wide, unknown world that was the internet. Plus, he could play _Doom_ and _Quake_ on it, which was always a good thing in his mind. Saito had even heard that there were websites out there now that he could use to meet people, which he felt would be nice.

If only he could get the stupid thing to work, though. A few days ago, the laptop had suddenly stopped working, and he had no idea why. After a few days of fruitlessly attempting to fix it on his own, he finally gave in and decided to go to a nearby computer repair shop, hoping they might be able to get it running again. Hopefully without deleting everything on the hard drive. That would certainly not be good news.

At least it was a wonderful day outside in Raccoon City. The summer air was nice and comfortably warm, cooled by a gentle breeze, and there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky. Everything was as it should be, which was a nice breath of fresh air after the recent strings of horrific murders that had been going on the past few weeks. Murders that involved people being _eaten_. They had the entire city on edge, and only recently had things finally begun to calm down and return to a sense of normalcy. At the same time, Saito couldn’t help but feel a tingle in the back of his neck that life in Raccoon City was teetering on a knife’s edge, and he hoped that was just his nerves getting to him.

Right now, all he was concerned about was getting his laptop repaired. School would be starting back up a week from now, and he would have to focus on preparing for his junior year. It was hard to imagine that pretty soon he might be leaving Raccoon City, his home for most of his life, in just a few years. For the seventeen-year-old Japanese-American boy, it was a nerve-racking thought. Especially since he still didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. It felt as though he was just going from moment to moment with no real plan. Hopefully something would come his way and he would find out what he was meant to do with his life, but until then he’d live as he always did.

‘ _Or is that the problem?_ ’ Saito silently asked himself, but he shrugged the thought off. Nothing might have come to him so far, but he had all the time in the world to find his purpose. If he was lucky, it might even come to him and save him the trouble.

Suddenly and without warning, Saito heard a faint voice calling out to him. It was in a language he couldn’t make out and sounded like it came from a girl. He took off his headphones and turned around to try and see who was calling out to him. To his confusion, he saw no one, just a bunch of strangers going about their day. Shrugging to himself and figuring he was just hearing things, he slipped back on his headphones and started walking once again, his finger prepared to restart the song he had missed the beginning of, only for the voice to reappear. This time it was much clearer and he could hear what was being said, if not actually understand it.

“ _My name is Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière_ ,” the mysterious voice began, throwing Saito for a loop.

“What the hell? Who said that?” Saito asked, stopping in front of an alleyway and turning around to try and find the source of the voice. The voice continued, still unintelligible to him yet at the same time vaguely familiar, but once again he found that no one was talking to him. Scrunching up his face, Saito held up his Walkman and looked it over, wondering if perhaps someone had tampered with it as a prank.

Then the voice started up again, and with a yelp he dropped both the Walkman and the laptop onto the pavement, and he scrambled to pick them up while the voice continued.

“ _My servant that exists somewhere in this vast universe_ ,” the feminine voice boldly declared, causing Saito to stand up and turn from side to side.

“Whoever’s saying that needs to stop. You’re freaking me out,” he declared, but the voice ignored him and continued. A few people around him gave Saito odd looks, but otherwise went on with their day without a care for his plight.

“ _My divine, beautiful, powerful familiar! I wish and assert from the bottom of my heart! Answer my guidance!_ ”

“What?” Saito asked aloud, then to his surprise he saw a faint green light emerge in front of him.

He fearfully stepped back as the light grew larger and larger, forming an oval-shaped tear in reality, the inside of which was a swirling green vortex. The more curious parts of his teenage mind wanted to more closely inspect it, but the rest was too frightened to even attempt that. So instead he remained rooted in place, and to his shock he found that others were walking right past the anomaly without giving it a second’s glance. Almost as though they couldn’t even see it.

“What is going on? What is this?” Saito asked himself in a low voice, feeling his curiosity grow stronger and stronger.

Then, as he gently raised his finger to poke it, the anomaly began to shift and shake. Holes and tears formed in the green oval, whatever forces keeping it up now tearing it apart. Saito then realized what was about to happen, and he could barely turn around and yell, “Oh shit!” before the oval collapsed onto itself and exploded. He was thrown into the air and landed several feet away, as were several other people who happened to be nearby. A few car alarms went off and a few windowpanes were shattered, and a thick black smoke covered the alleyway, obscuring his view.

“Gah-gah! Is everyone okay?” Saito called out as he coughed violently, trying to wave the smoke away from his face. He could hear others call out, trying their best to figure out what was going on. At the same time, he heard some police sirens in the distance, undoubtedly alerted to the sudden disturbance.

Saito checked himself first, and he sighed in relief that he wasn’t seriously hurt. At most a few scratches along with what felt like a bruise on his side, but that was nothing a quick spray of Cinatiropa wouldn’t fix. That first aid spray could work miracles. As the smoke cleared, he found that the others unfortunately caught in the blast were in the same boat, more dazed and confused than anything else. The nearby cars weren’t so lucky, and the sidewalk was cracked and caved in from the explosion. He reckoned that at least a couple thousand dollars’ worth of property damage had taken place. It was then that he remembered his electronic devices, and he scrambled to pick them up to check for damages. To his dismay, he found that the laptop’s screen was now cracked, as was the Walkman’s casing. He hoped that they’d still be able to work, and he sighed while hanging his head and resting on his knees.

“What the hell was that?” someone asked as others came in to get a closer look.

“Jesus Christ, my car!” another screeched as they checked their vehicle.

“Did a gas line break or something?” a man suggested, scratching his head at the perplexing situation.

Part of Saito wanted to agree him, but at the same time he thought back to the tear in reality that he saw. He felt that it and the explosion were related somehow, but he had no idea what it even was. For all he knew, he was simply hallucinating after breathing in some natural gas, but it felt so _real_. It certainly didn’t seem like a hallucination, but at the same time it would explain why no one else saw it. Saito kept quiet, though, not wanting to make people think he was crazy or, God forbid, somehow responsible for this. At least no one was hurt.

Then, from the corner of his eye, he spotted something laying on the ground inside the alleyway, just behind a corner out of sight. Getting up to his feet, Saito slowly began approaching the object, and to his surprise he found that it was actually a girl. A girl wearing what looked like a cross between a witches’ outfit and a school uniform. Why she was wearing a Halloween costume in August was beyond him, but he was far more concerned with the fact that she was unconscious. He quickly put two and two together and realized that she must have been caught up in the surprise explosion as well, only she wasn’t as lucky as everyone else.

“Someone call 9-1-1!” Saito shouted as he crouched over her, trying his best to check her for wounds.

He heard people gasp as they saw what he saw, then several of them run off to the nearest payphone or police officer. In an outstanding example of the bystander effect, none of them decided to actually run up to join him and offer aid, which irked the boy to no end. Still, Saito tried to remember how to check someone for a pulse, and after a moment he pressed two fingers against her neck. To his relief, he felt a gentle throb, telling him that she was still alive. Saito then began to check her for any obvious wounds, but luckily he couldn’t find any. Unless they were under that cloak of hers, but there was no way he was going to check that.

Then, the girl’s head began to move and she let out an uncomfortable groan. Slowly, her eyes fluttered open, and she looked up to find Saito staring at her.

“Hey, are you okay?” he gently asked. The girl looked at him silently for a moment, and Saito prepared to say something else before she screamed loudly and slapped him across the face.

“Ow!” Saito yelped, rubbing his hand against his face while backing up. At the same time, the pink-haired girl got up to her feet and began shouting in a language he did not understand.

“ _Who are you?! Where am I? Where is everyone?!_ ” the girl demanded, her head shooting all over the place, her eyes wide and panicked. “ _Professor Colbert!?_ ”

“Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay. Just calm down,” Saito insisted, raising his hands gently to try and calm the panicked girl. It was clear that she had absolutely no idea where she was, and to be honest Saito didn’t even know where she came from. He could have sworn that there was no one else in the alleyway before the explosion, and he liked to think that he would have recognized a pretty girl wearing such a unique outfit walking next to him.

Then the girl focused her attention on him, and her eyes narrowed before she raised a wooden stick. She began to shout, _“You, plebian! I demand to know where I am!_ ”

“Huh?” Saito asked, not understanding her in the slightest.

“ _Grrgh,_ ” the girl growled. “ _I said, where am I?_ ”

Saito stared at her blankly and scratched his head. The more she talked, the bigger the sense of familiarity grew. It was almost as though her voice matched what he had heard earlier, but that was impossible.

“Lady, I’m sorry but I can’t understand you,” Saito slowly said, trying to act out his words with his hands while hoping that she would at least understand those. The girl stared at them, then she groaned while pinching her nose.

“ _Ah, perfect. You can’t understand me, can you_?” she said, and Saito hoped that she understood what he was trying to convey.

At the same time, as he heard the police sirens get closer, he began to pick up hints as to what language she was speaking. It sounded remarkably like French, and the only reason why we knew that was because of his high-school Spanish class he had to take. Funny how he could speak three languages to varying degrees, but when he finally needed to speak something other than English with someone outside of his immediate family, he was completely unable to.

Then, the girl suddenly tilted her head, still keeping that stick pointed at him, and he could tell that the gears in her head were beginning to whirl. Like him, she was clearly trying to recognize what language he was speaking, then she slowly began to ask, “Can you…understand this?”

“Oh, you speak English? That’s a relief,” he replied, answering the girl’s question. At the same time, she gave him an odd look, as though the word English was alien to her, but then she shook her head and thrust her wand back into Saito’s face.

“Alright, plebian,” she slowly said as though she hadn’t spoken English in years.

“Plebian?’” Saito asked, feeling slightly insulted, but the girl ignored him.

“I do not know where I am or how I got here,” she continued, growing more confident in her speech. “So you’re going to answer my questions. Understand?”

“Okay…?” Saito replied, feeling confused. He then scratched his cheek and asked, “I don’t quite understand what—"

The girl’s face then scrunched up in anger, and before he knew it she swung her want to the side and aimed at a nearby trashcan. She spoke a word in what he assumed was French, then suddenly a small pop erupted onto the metal can, denting it slightly and creating a small puff of black smoke. The pop was drowned out by the background noise of the city, but Saito could hear it clear as day. He stared incredulously at the damaged receptacle, then slowly shifted his attention towards the stick she was wielding in her right hand. With her threat made apparent, she pointed the wand at Saito again, and this time he leaned back, now certain that whatever it was, it wasn’t just a harmless piece of wood.

“Now, let’s try this again,” the girl harshly began, her eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”

“Uh, my name?” Saito started, unsure of just what the hell was going on. Then the girl dangerously tilted her head towards him in clear anger, and he gulped loudly before answering her, “My name’s Saito Hiraga!”

“Okay, Saito,” the girl said, clearly unused to the pronunciation but continuing regardless. “Where am I?”

“You’re, uh, in Raccoon City.”

“What kingdom is that in?” she asked, and Saito raised his eyebrow.

“Kingdom?”

“What country?!” she harshly demanded, poking her stick into Saito’s chest.

“Okay, seriously! I don’t know what that thing is, but it’s making me nervous!” Saito insisted. “I’m as confused about this as you are!”

The girl looked at Saito for a moment, then her eyes narrowed again and said, “I’ll put my wand away when you answer my question, commoner. What country or kingdom are we in? I’ve never heard of this ‘Raccoon City’ before.”

Saito felt more confused than ever when she called the stick a wand. Did she mean a magic wand? That was insane. Magic did not exist. But, at the same time, he couldn’t help but somehow believe her. From the voice in his head that he was now utterly certain belonged to her, to the tear in reality that no one else saw, and finally the fact that she blew up a trash can by saying a word. A word that apparently caused a small explosion. It really seemed as though magic, literal magic, was at play, and right now a very angry and confused witch was pointing her wand at him.

Taking another gulp, Saito said, “Raccoon City is the county seat of Arklay County. The country we’re in is the United States of America. We’re not a kingdom, though. We’re actually a republic. There, I answered your question. Can you put that…wand away now, please?”

The girl looked at him for a moment, clearly not recognizing a single word he said. She also gave him an odd look when he mentioned how the United States was a republic, as though the entire concept was either alien or abhorrent to her, but to his relief she sighed and lowered her wand. She then said, “I suppose that suffices.”

“Thank you,” Saito let out, sighing in relief and lowering his arms to his side. A heavy silence fell over them, and Saito then asked, “I, um, didn’t catch your name. Miss…?”

The girl nodded, then straightened herself, and declared, “My name is Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière. I am the daughter of the Duke and Duchess Vallière of the holy kingdom of Tristain.”

Saito stared at her for a moment, then replied, “Okay…Louise. Quick question. What is Tristain?”

“’What is Tristain?’” Louise repeated incredulously. “It’s only one of the four Brimiric kingdoms! Descended from the Founder Brimir himself, and one of the great powers of Halkegenia!”

“I may not be the best history or geography student,” Saito admitted, “but I’ve never heard of Tristain, Halkegenia, or this Brimir dude.”

“WHAT?!” the girl screamed, her eyes going wide.

“Hold on, is this some kind of hardcore _Dungeons and Dragons_ roleplaying?” Saito asked, which made the girl shoot her head back. She then snarled, clearly offended by the insinuation and her fists tightened to the point where her knuckles were turning white.

Her hand reached for her wand yet again, but Saito didn’t back away this time. Instead, he narrowed his eyes in both confusion and suspicion. He had absolutely no idea what was going on with her, with part of him wanting to believe that she had simply gone crazy from the unknown gas that had to be leaking out somewhere. But, at the same time, he still somehow believed her, or at least believed she believed what she was saying. There was one thing he was certain of, however. This Louise chick was not from around here, and it was far beyond what a high school junior was capable of dealing with. Luckily for him and Louise, they heard footsteps walking down the alleyway, and they saw a police officer walk towards them.

“Hey, what’s going on over here?” the officer asked, and Saito sighed in relief. At the same time, he read the nametag on the officer’s chest and saw that it read ‘M. Branagh.”

“Ah, officer. Thank God, you would not _believe_ what has been going on,” Saito declared, and Louise perked up at the fact that this was a person of authority.

“You talking about the sudden explosion?” Officer Branagh asked, and when Saito nodded he nodded back. “Crazy stuff. Were either of you hurt?”

“Luckily, no,” Saito replied, “despite the fact that it blew up in my face. Just a few cuts and bruises, nothing serious. I saw her laying on the ground, completely unconscious, further into the alleyway afterwards, though.”

Officer Branagh adopted a much more serious demeanor and calmly stepped forward to Louise. He kneeled slightly and began to check her over for injuries, gently asking, “What’s your name, miss?”

“Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière,” Louise replied, trying to put on an air of authority. To her surprise, however, Officer Branagh merely chuckled.

“Well, that’s a mouthful. Mind if I just call you Louise?” he asked. After a moment, Louise slowly nodded, and Officer Branagh nodded back before saying, “You can call me Marvin. Now then, I’m going to need you two to come with me.”

“Why? Are we in trouble?” Saito asked, feeling nervous, but that was quickly dissipated when Marvin shook his head.

“Not at all. We’re taking statements from everybody, but since you two were seemingly at the center of it, I’m going to ask you your questions after I take you two to the nearest hospital. Does that sound reasonable?”

Personally, Saito didn’t feel all that hurt, but the last thing he needed was to assume he was fine, only to find out later that he wasn’t when in fact his insides had turned into mush from whatever that explosion was. Louise looked like she in a similar thought process, and at the same time eager to get away from this confusing situation that both she and Saito found themselves in. So, the two teenagers nodded, and Marvin nodded back before calmly escorting them to his squad car. As they exited the alleyway, though, Saito couldn’t help but notice Louise’s shift in demeanor. She was looking up at the Raccoon City skyline, her eyes widening in surprised awe while her jaw slackened. Following her gaze, Saito saw that she was looking at a tall skyscraper just a few blocks away.

“What? Never seen a skyscraper before?” Saito asked, and Louise, still looking at the skyscraper, shook her head.

“Is it…is it made of glass?” she softly asked as though she was struggling to comprehend what she was seeing.

“Uh, no. That’s just the windows. It’s actually made of steel and concrete, I think,” Saito explained, feeling his confusion increase. Officer Branagh remained silent, although Saito knew that he was listening in and taking mental notes.

Then, when a car sped by, Louise shot her attention towards it, jumping back slightly. Saito couldn’t help but compare her reaction to that of a small child’s the first time they saw a car, and when a firetruck rolled in with its flashing lights and blaring siren, she shifted her bewildered attention towards it. Her reaction was yet further proof to Saito that she was definitely not from around here, and his confusion grew.

Finally, Marvin Branagh was able to usher them to his squad car, which seemed to knock Louise out of her stupor. Without saying a word, she hopped into the back seat, with Saito climbing in after her. He immediately put on his seatbelt, but when he saw Louise awkwardly staring at hers, clearly not knowing what to do with it, Saito sighed and leaned over to help. She didn’t say anything in response, only giving a gentle nod as thanks. Saito nodded back, then Marvin started his car’s engine. Louise jumped at the sudden noise, and Saito couldn’t help but chuckle. His amusement faltered, however, after a few minutes of driving, and he shifted into a groan.

“What’s the matter?” Marvin asked as he continued to drive, looking at the boy from the corner of his eye through the rear view mirror.

“I just realized that my mom and dad are going to flip out when they find out about this,” Saito groaned into his hands. Marvin couldn’t help but let out an amused chuckle, and he continued to drive both teenagers to their destination.

At the same time, Saito couldn’t help but notice that Louise’s face paled at the mention of his parents, and his confusion partially gave way to concern.

~

_August 17 th, 11:00 PM_

_Raccoon City, Arklay County, United States of America_

Louise could only stare out the window in silent horror. It was practically all she could do for the last few hours, especially since the hospital staff had finished their tests for the day. They were going to do more tomorrow, she knew, but right now that anticipation paled to the utter dread she was feeling at the moment.

For as she stared at the single pale moon that sat triumphant in the black sky, she was forced to face the reality that she was no longer in Tristain, Halkegenia, or even her own world. Louise tried to understand how this had happened, but the only explanation she could think of went back to her Familiar Spirit Summoning Exam. She had attempted to summon her familiar just like everyone else, to finally prove that she was actually a mage worthy of the Vallière name, but after yet another explosion, she found herself no longer in the academy’s courtyard. Instead, she was laying on the cold, hard ground, with an unknown boy apparently named Saito standing over her.

In retrospect, she had probably overreacted when she had met and accosted Saito, if only a little. But since she was in a place completely unknown to her, she felt her hostility could be excused. Right now, she was simply trying to wrap her head around what had happened to her. At first couldn’t understand any of the written words on the walls, the text so orderly and uniform that it threw her for a loop Only after a few hours of staring at them did she realize the text was Albionese, or ‘English’ as these people called it. The dialect was foreign to her, and she had to focus on what she was saying lest she accidentally say the wrong thing, but the revelation did grant her a starting point. After that it took some adjustment, but now she was able to read the words more clearly. Some she readily understood, such as ‘hospital,’ ‘exit,’ and ‘laboratory.’ But others, like ‘computer’ and ‘electrical,’ made no sense to her.

There was one thing perfectly clear to her, though. Louise knew that the explosion Saito was referring to came from her and her failed summoning spell, and when Officer Branagh had asked her about it, she had admitted as such. She had been fully intending to accept the consequences of her spell, especially since it actually caused property damage and minor injuries, but to her surprise Officer Branagh hadn’t believed her. In fact, he outright declared that magic didn’t exist and that she must have been confused. He wouldn’t even let her do a demonstration before the doctors and nurses wheeled her away again. The doctors hadn’t been able to find any medical records on her, and as such had to basically create them from scratch.

She had blood taken from her body through tiny needles, inked stamps of her fingers onto pieces of paper, had to look through a strange ocular device that apparently gauged her eyesight, and somehow got to see what her bones looked like. Seeing those images had been both mind-numbingly terrifying as well as utterly fascinating. There were other tests as well, and more were going to be completed the next day before she and Saito got released, but those were the ones that stood out. She wondered just what they would do to her next, and at the same time wondered why she kept seeing the image of a red and black umbrella everywhere.

Now, though, she could only stare out at the moon in solemn silence. More than ever before, Louise Vallière felt completely lost, and she had no idea what to do.

[~][~]


	2. Welcome to Raccoon City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Louise is finally released from the hospital and moves in with the Hiraga family, but dark forces are keeping a close eye on her as the city moves forward on its path towards doom.

**Familiar Evil (ZnT/Resident Evil)  
Chapter 2: Welcome to Raccoon City **

[~][~]

_Tristain Academy of Magic_

_Kingdom of Tristain, Halkegenia_

It had been five days since the Familiar Summoning Ceremony took place. In years prior, the schoolground would currently be covered with students bonding with their new familiars and showing them off to their friends. That sight had always brought a smile to Colbert’s face, but unfortunately that was not the case this year. Instead, the entire academy was still on lockdown. Guards patrolled the grounds, making sure everything was secure. All students were instructed to remain in their dorms, only leaving to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In perhaps the most extreme precautionary measure, any and all communications from students to their families were intercepted and destroyed on orders from Headmaster Osmund. According to him, the last thing the academy needed was to cause an outright panic among the noble families before they fully understood what was going on. Not to mention that the damage to the academy’s reputation if this event got out would have been immeasurable. Colbert supposed it made a certain amount of sense, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

Still, the lockdown persisted, and Colbert doubted it would be let up anytime soon. How else would they react when one of their students, the daughter of one of the most prestigious families in the entire kingdom, outright disappeared? Disappeared was perhaps the only word that Colbert could use to describe what had happened to Louise Vallière. One moment she was there, trying her best to cast her spell like the rest of her classmates. The next, the entire courtyard was filled with smoke, Louise nowhere to be seen. For the past several days he and the rest of the academy’s teachers had been scouring every inch around the academy in search of her. No stone was left unturned, and they only called the search off after stretching ten miles in every direction around the academy.

It was clear: Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière wasn’t anywhere near the academy. A persistent fear and rumor was that Louise had accidentally blown herself up, but Colbert doubted it. He had seen the aftermath of someone caught up in a deadly explosion, and although Louise’s were loud and quite forceful, thus far they weren’t deadly. At most a few bruises, but nothing a dot mage or a low-quality potion couldn’t fix. If Louise had truly blown herself up and died, they would have seen the messy aftermath. Instead, nothing was there except for a disturbed patch of grass and slightly upturned dirt. While they didn’t know for certain, Colbert and the other teachers prayed that the lack of a body meant she was still alive, which then begged the more pressing question:

What, exactly, had happened to Louise? It was something Colbert had been focusing on whenever he wasn’t searching for her, and over the past few days he suspected he hardly got any sleep. He was utterly exhausted, kept up by only magic and potions as he scoured the academy’s extensive archives, searching for any hint at all that might lead him to Louise’s fate. So far, he hadn’t found anything conclusive, which made him feel even worse.

“Jean, you need to rest,” Headmaster Osmund insisted as he and Professor Colbert sat in the headmaster’s office.

“No, I’m…I’m fine,” Colbert countered, stopping to yawn while rubbing his tired eyes.

“You’re not. Look at yourself,” Osmund replied, holding up a handheld mirror so that Colbert’s reflection could be seen.

Even Colbert had to admit that he looked positively dreadful. His eyes were droopy and sunken in, the hair on the back and side of his head frayed and disheveled. A stubbled beard had emerged, and every so often his body would sway from utter exhaustion, not to mention the smell emanating off his person. He hadn’t bathed since Louise’s disappearance, and while Colbert had grown used to the stench, others openly gagged as they passed by.

“I’m fine,” Colbert declared despite knowing otherwise, and Osmund sighed while putting the mirror away.

“Now see here, Jean. I understand, you’re worried about Louise. All of us are,” Osmund said as he rubbed his long beard that stretched down to his knees. He then pointed at Colbert and added, “But I will not let you destroy yourself over this.”

“But I’m about to find something, I know it!” Jean shouted, but the strain in his voice made it weak.

“Then I will gladly pick up where you left off,” Osmund offered, his eyes narrowed. “The entire faculty is focused only on finding our wayward student. They can afford you taking one night’s worth of sleep.”

“You don’t understand!” Colbert shot back. “Louise is _my_ student! She’s _my_ responsibility and she disappeared under _my_ watch! If I hadn’t let her do that damn summoning, she’d-…!”

Colbert trailed off, then hung his head while clutching it tightly. Osmund slowly nodded as he rubbed his beard, then gently said, “It’s not your fault, Jean.”

“Yes, it is,” Colbert insisted, refusing to make eye contact. “She failed the spell twice. I should have stopped her then, but I didn’t. Instead, I let my feelings get in the way and look at what happened. Louise is gone without a trace, and we have no idea what could have happened.”

“None of us suspected this would happen,” Osmund softly replied. “The Familiar Summoning Spell has been cast, without fail, by every mage for nearly six-thousand years. How could anyone think Louise would be any different, including her? To be honest, had you failed her I suspect the only thing that would have resulted was the poor girl’s confidence in herself being irrevocably shattered.”

“…I know, that’s why I didn’t,” Colbert quietly admitted, looking back up at Osmund through bloodshot eyes. Osmund nodded, then he stood up and walked to his office’s window and looked out across the empty plain, forests, and mountains that surrounded the academy.

“What are we doing to do?” Jean softly asked, and Osmund hummed while rubbing his beard.

“Right now, you’re going to your room and sleeping,” Osmund declared without turning around. “I’ll have Miss Longueville pick up where you left off, so don’t worry about any lost progress.”

“…Okay,” Jean softly replied after a moment’s hesitation. He then asked, “What about the Vallière’s?”

“The letter I sent to their estate should have arrived this morning,” Osmund answered, and despite his back being turned to Colbert, the professor could easily recognize the nervousness that filled him.

“How long until Karin arrives?” Colbert asked after gulping loudly.

“Knowing her, and the distance between the academy and their lands,” Osmund began, only for them to feel a shudder as a clap of thunder sounded, accompanied by a gust of heavy wind that buffeted the windows. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky, yet both of them trembled as they recognized its source.

“About now,” Osmund finished, then saw a faint dot in the distance that drew his and Colbert’s attention.

The dot grew larger and more defined as it drew closer, and they saw that it was, in fact, a manticore. Sitting on top of the manticore was a single rider, and despite not being able to see any distinguishing features they knew exactly who the person was. They could see that a heavy stream of wind was pushing the manticore past its top speed, and even as it approached the academy it did not slow down. Only when the manticore was right outside the office did it cease, the rider braking with a heavy gust of wind that nearly shattered the windows.

Neither Osmund nor Colbert said a word as the rider jumped off the manticore with her staff in hand, and she forced open the door with another gust of air. She stomped towards both men, a dark cloud almost literally hanging over her as her eyes burned in rage, and she was clutching her wooden staff with enough force to nearly shatter it. Her pink dress was slightly ruffled as though she had barely taken the time to prepare after receiving the letter and making all haste towards the academy. More than anything else, it was clear that the two men were in very serious danger, with even the slightest misstatement promising nothing but pain.

“Duchess Vallière,” Headmaster Osmund calmly greeted Karin Désirée de la Vallière, but when Karin shot an angry glare towards him, he instinctually flinched.

“Osmund. Colbert,” Karin growled, stomping forward as the two men remained rooted in place. “I’m going to ask you this once. _Where. Is. My. Daughter?_ ”

~

_August 22nd, 1998 9:30 AM_

_Raccoon City, Arklay County, United States of America_

Louise sat fully upright on the hospital bed, scowling at the assembled group of doctors around her while crossing her arms.

“Ms. Vallière,” Doctor Moreau, an elderly man with balding grey hair and a pair of glasses sitting atop his nose, began, but Louise immediately cut him off.

“As I already told you, no,” Louise insisted, her scowl deepening, but the doctor was persistent.

“We just need to run a few more tests,” he tried to say, but Louise merely narrowed her eyes.

“That’s what you told me yesterday, and the day before that,” she pointed out, the disbelief in her voice obvious to everyone. “I’ve been here for five days, and I think it’s obvious that I’m fine just like Saito. Yet you let him out after a day, while _I’m still here_.”

“Your medical records were completely absent, Louise,” another doctor, a woman with long red hair named Doctor Paige, replied. “That requires more testing in order to produce the most accurate results, not to mention administer all the vaccinations you missed.”

“I understand that, but I don’t think that should have taken more than two days. Three, at most,” Louise shot back. “I’m done taking tests for you. Let me out.”

The doctors sighed in frustration while a few shook their heads. Louise, meanwhile, continuing glaring defiantly at the medical examiners, refusing to back down. She had been stuck inside the Spencer Memorial Hospital for five days now, with her only movements being from her hospital room to one of the many laboratories scattered around the building. At first, she had accepted it. She was in a brand-new world, something she was still wrapping her head around, and the doctors were merely trying to make sure she was healthy. When Saito, the boy she had met upon her arrival, was let out the next day, she chalked it up to her recent arrival to Raccoon City and felt she’d be let out the day after that. But that didn’t happen, and by the time the third day rolled to a close, concerns had begun to rear their ugly head.

By now it was clear to Louise. The hospital staff, for whatever reason, weren’t letting her go. She didn’t know why, but she did know that she wanted nothing to do with them anymore. With each passing moment, she felt less like a patient and more like a prisoner, which was not a situation Louise felt comfortable in. Even when she was alone, Louise felt as though someone was watching her. If she had her wand, Louise might’ve felt tempted to simply blast her way out of the building, but that wasn’t an option for her as the hospital had confiscated her belongings. At the moment, all she was wearing was a light hospital gown, which made her itch in places.

Doctor Moreau sighed once again while taking off his glasses, then rubbing the lens and said, “Ms. Vallière, I understand that you are uncomfortable. Believe me, an extended stay in a hospital is the last thing anyone wants. If it were up to me, I’d let you go, but Doctor Bard hasn’t signed off on your release just yet.”

“May I ask why?” Louise demanded.

“Some irregularities were detected, and he wanted to make sure they aren’t harmful,” he replied. When Louise narrowed her eyes, he raised his hands placatingly and added, “I don’t believe it’s anything of concern, but more importantly there’s the matter of what to do _after_ your release. By your own admission, you arrived in Raccoon City alone under unknown circumstances. Do you have anywhere to go?”

Louise moved to answer but stopped herself. Were this in Tristain, or anywhere else on Halkegenia, she’d simply say she’d go back to the Tristain Academy of Magic or even the Vallière Estate. But she wasn’t in Tristain nor Halkegenia. Instead, she was in another world entirely, completely cut off from her family and anyone else she might’ve turned to. Louise was well and truly alone, and if she were to leave the hospital, she’d be homeless. For anyone, much less the daughter of a duke and duchess, it was a terrifying prospect, and Louise couldn’t help but hold her body close.

Doctor Moreau frowned slightly and nodded as he placed his glasses back on, then quietly stated, “That’s what I thought. More than anything else, Louise, I cannot in good conscience grant you release without knowing where you’d end up. Right now, the only thing I can think of is putting you in a foster home, but I don’t think you want that.”

“…No, I don’t,” Louise admitted, hanging her head. The doctors and nurses nodded again, then they walked over to the door to head out into the hallway.

“We’ll come back in a bit,” he declared. “This will all be over soon, don’t worry.”

Doctor Moreau gently closed the door behind him, leaving Louise all to herself once again. She then looked back up at the doorway, steeled her gaze, and muttered, “Yeah, right.”

Releasing a long sigh, Louise fell back into the bed. There were still many questions swirling around in her head, but she was fairly certain of a few things. The ‘anomaly’ that Doctor Moreau spoke of was most likely her magic. Given how magic appeared to be nonexistent on Earth, it would certainly be something that they’d be curious about. Louise would bet her title that she was perfectly healthy, and the only reason why the hospital hadn’t released her was due to a desire to study her magic. On any other day, she might have been overjoyed to finally have someone confirm her magic, but right now all she felt was disgust.

At the same time, though, her stay in the Spencer Memorial Hospital wasn’t entirely bad. To her surprise, after his release Saito had continued to visit Louise daily, and the two would strike up conversation that would last for hours, or at least until the doctors ushered him away so that they could administer more tests. While Louise couldn’t necessarily call him a friend just yet, he had definitely proven himself to be an enjoyable companion. If anything, she was more confused as to why he kept visiting her in the first place. According to him, he didn’t quite know himself, just that he got a feeling and felt concerned. If it meant being able to talk to someone her age, even a commoner, Louise would gladly take it. It definitely helped that Saito was practically the only person to not outright dismiss her claims of being from another world. He didn’t believe her entirely, but at the same time he never quite refuted her claims, either. Saito didn’t say why he did, but at the very least he provided a much-needed ear.

Officer Marvin and other members of the Raccoon City Police Department had also frequently visited over the past few days, interviewing her in an effort to try to figure out what exactly happened. To her disappointment, the RPD didn’t believe her claims about coming from another world in the slightest. Instead, judging by the questions they had for her, the RPD appeared to believe that Louise was a victim of human trafficking, brought over to the United States from a ‘backward region’ in Europe, thus explaining her complete lack of knowledge of history and culture regarding the world. Frankly, it was a miracle that English and Albionese were so similar, otherwise none of them would have been able to speak to each other.

Louise was then broken from her thoughts as she heard a knock on the door. Sitting upright, she looked at the door as it was carefully opened, and to her relief she saw that it was, once again, Saito. A nurse had escorted him, despite the fact that he knew exactly where Louise’s room was, and as the door closed he rolled his eyes.

“You’d think they’d stop after the third time,” Saito pointed out, and Louise merely shrugged in response.

“Clearly not,” she said as Saito pulled up a chair and sat next to her.

“How’s it going? Are they letting you out, yet?” he asked, and Louise shook her head.

“No, they’re not,” she admitted, and Saito frowned.

“What? Why?”

“Apparently, they found ‘anomalies’ that they want to ensure aren’t harmful,” Louise replied, making air quotes with her fingers. “By anomalies, they most likely mean my magic.”

Saito raised his eyebrow slightly at the mention of her magic, still having trouble accepting it despite seeing it with his own eyes, then scoffed and retorted, “Seriously? Oh, that’s bullshit. You and I both know you’re perfectly healthy.”

“I know, but there’s nothing I can do.” Louise declared, throwing her arms to the side.

“They can’t just keep you here,” Saito stated, leaning forward while resting his elbows on his knees. “You’re sixteen years old, for God’s sake. You’re more than capable of making your own decisions.”

“You think I haven’t told them that?” Louise asked, raising her eyebrow. She was still a little miffed that the doctors hadn’t believed her when she revealed her age, until they managed to somehow measure the age of her bones and confirm it for themselves, but that was beside the point.

“Besides,” Louise slowly admitted, “even if they let me out, where am I going to go? I’m completely alone here, cut off from Tristain, with no one to turn to.”

“Oh, right…” Saito muttered, hanging his head and rubbing his chin.

The pair of teenagers sat in the room in an uncomfortable silence, Saito averting his gaze in thought while Louise glanced at him from the corners of her eyes. Once again, he didn’t refute her, nor did he accept her claims. She suspected that Saito, much like everyone else, would need more substantial proof to believe her, yet at the same time she was beginning to wonder if she even should. If the Spencer Memorial Hospital was so interested in her magic as to keep her effectively trapped in the hospital against her will, who knows what someone else might be willing to do. Even then, while foster care was certainly an option, there was the fact that taking it might result in her leaving Raccoon City. She might be alone in another world, in a completely foreign locale, but the last thing Louise wanted was to trade one alien environment for another that was even more unfamiliar.

“Hmm,” Saito began to hum, piquing Louise’s interest. As he rubbed his chin, he looked up at Louise and said, “I…may have an idea.”

“Oh? What might that be?” Louise asked, tilting her head and narrowing her eyes.

“I’ll have to go over it with my parents first, but…we do have an extra room in our apartment,” Saito revealed, causing Louise’s eyes to widen. Saito, suddenly feeling awkward, began to rub the back of his head and added, “Assuming they say yes, you’re more than welcome to it. Beats the hospital room, at least. Right?”

Louise stared at him for a moment, then raised her eyebrow and asked, “Is that…legal?”

Saito shrugged, then admitted, “I dunno, but I have half a mind to say that what they’re doing isn’t entirely legal, either.”

Louise was silent for a few moments, contemplating her answer. On the one hand, she hardly knew Saito. They had only met a few days prior, and that wasn’t under the best of circumstances. After that, they had only met a few times as Saito came over to visit, which didn’t leave a lot of time to really get to know him. For all she knew, the seemingly nice, normal boy could be a raging pervert. Yet, at the same time he repeatedly went out of his way to visit her, showing that at the very least he cared for her wellbeing. Saito seemed friendly enough, and deep down she felt something she couldn’t quite put into words that drew her towards him. Told her that he could be trusted.

The more she thought about it, the more the idea appealed to her. At the very least, it would be better than a hospital bed. Coming to a decision, Louise looked back up at Saito, then nodded. After a moment, Saito smiled and nodded back.

~

Saito’s parents hadn’t needed much convincing after their son told them about Louise’s situation. It certainly helped that he had been keeping them in the loop throughout his time visiting her, so by the time Saito finally asked if she could stay with them for the time being they had practically set up her room already. The hospital had been harder to convince. On the surface, Spencer Memorial was hesitant due to Louise still being a minor and Saito’s family not being related to her at all. A perfectly valid reasoning on its own, but both Saito and Louise knew that was just an excuse to keep her there. But, since Louise both accepted and wanted the arrangement, and Saito’s family was willing to fight for it, a compromise was reached after several hours of arguing. Louise would, finally, be allowed to leave Spencer Memorial to stay with the Hiraga family, who would be her hosts until more permanent arrangements could be made. But the hospital insisted, in turn, that Louise return once per week for checkups until such a time that it was no longer necessary. Louise would have preferred to leave the hospital behind and never look back, but while not ideal the arrangement was preferable to the one she currently had.

“You got everything?” Saito asked Louise as she left the hospital.

“Yes,” Louise announced, straightening out her academy uniform while placing her wand in a pocket. Saito nodded in relief, then they walked towards his parents, who were waiting by a bright red Toyota Camry. Both of them were giving Louise sympathetic looks, but at the same time they were studying her curiously.

“Louise, are those the only clothes you have?” Mrs. Hiraga, a short woman with long black hair, asked, and Louise nodded. Frowning slightly, she shook her head and said, “Well, we can’t have you going around only wearing that. Saito, dear, do you mind taking her around to get some new clothes?”

“Sure,” Saito replied while shrugging, then opened the car door for Louise to step inside. Louise, meanwhile, gave herself a once over, wondering just what, exactly, was wrong with her outfit before getting inside.

Seeing her confusion after getting in the car, Mr. Hiraga, a tall man with broad shoulders, wearing a pair of glasses and his short, black hair neatly combed back, turned around in the driver’s seat to look at Louise and added, “No offense, but you look like you’re wearing a Halloween costume.”

“…What’s Halloween?” Louise asked, not knowing if she should be offended or not. Both Hiraga parents looked at each other in alarm, but Saito gently grabbed Louise’s shoulder while waving them off.

“Don’t worry, we’ll take care of it. Mom, Dad, if you can just drop us off at the mall we’ll call you when we’re done,” Saito requested.

Both parents nodded, then Mr. Hiraga started the ignition. Once again, Louise jumped slightly at the loud, harsh noise, but quickly recomposed herself. Remembering how Saito managed to lock the safety belt, she slowly repeated the action, and once everyone was strapped in, Mr. Hiraga drove away, leaving the hospital behind for good. Louise stole one last glance as they left the parking lot and entered the main street running adjacent to it, happy to finally be leaving it behind. At the same time, she could have sworn that she saw a figure staring at the car from an upper-story window, but the figure disappeared so fast that she chalked it up to her just seeing things. Letting out a sigh of relief, Louise leaned back into her seat and looked out the window.

“So, Louise,” Mrs. Hiraga began, “you seem to have enraptured my son. I can’t imagine why else he would keep coming here day after day.”

“Mom!” Saito protested, a faint blush erupting across his face while Louise merely looked on in confusion. Mrs. Hiraga was giggling, while Mr. Hiraga smiled in amusement while continuing to focus on the road.

“Mind telling us a bit about yourself?” she asked, turning around in her seat to look at Louise. A warm, friendly and genuine smile was across her face, and from the rearview mirror Louise could see that Mr. Hiraga was glancing at her every so often.

Louise briefly glanced at Saito. Knowing that while he hadn’t refuted her assertions did not mean his parents would do the same, she answered, “My name’s Louise Vallière. I’m the youngest of three daughters, and I’m from France, I think.”

“Ah, yes,” Mrs. Hiraga slowly replied, her face falling into a sad, sympathetic frown once again. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that. But you made it out, and that’s all that matters. You’ll be safe with us, don’t worry.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Hiraga,” Louise replied, grateful for the assurance while knowing it was somewhat misplaced. Mrs. Hiraga smiled back, then turned back around to stare at the road. Louise sighed, happy that she didn’t have to give out more details at the moment.

At the same time, she figured that if she had to keep her magic a secret for the time being, she would have to get her story straight. Deciding that it was best to work with what she was given and use half-truths, she figured that playing along with what the police thought while adding basic details about her actual life would be sufficient. Turning away from that, Louise shifted her attention back outside the car, and she watched in amazement as they moved around the city.

Louise had always thought that Tristainia, the capital city of Tristain, was the largest city she had ever seen, and with a population of nearly 100,000 people, it certainly held tightly to the claim of largest city in the kingdom. But compared to Raccoon City, Tristainia might as well have been small and cramped. The streets were wide as multiple lanes of cars drove by, some honking at each other as traffic built up. Pedestrians walked on the sidewalk, and only now did Louise realize that they were as wide as Tristainia’s streets. With glass-covered skyscrapers reaching high overhead, the sunlight reflected back towards the ground, forcing her to avert her gaze after a moment. There weren’t very many trees, and the only animal life she could see were pets being walked by their owners and birds perched atop lampposts, but Louise was enraptured, nonetheless. The only bad part she could think of was the noise and excessive light at night.

What was more surprising to her, though, was when Saito revealed that Raccoon City had a population of over 100,000 people and _wasn’t_ the capital of their country. It was the county head of Arklay County, but that wasn’t anything special according to him. When Saito revealed that some American cities had populations in the _millions_ , that had thrown her for a loop. To them, a city of 100,000 people was considered small, which said a lot about just how big the United States of America truly was, as did their ability to construct buildings out of steel. Louise was no expert in metallurgy, by any means, but even she knew just how expensive high-quality steel could be. Yet these people were able to apparently make it whenever they wanted at whatever quantity they desired. It was a subject she still struggled to wrap her head around, especially since they were able to do so without any magic at all.

Louise’s thoughts were broken as they rolled to a stop in front of a large building, the parking lot filled with cars and people. Pulling up to the side of the nearest department store, Mr. Hiraga said, “We’re here. You kids have fun. Meet us back here in three hours.”

“Got it, Dad,” Saito replied as he unhooked his seatbelt and opened the door for him and Louise. Louise got out right after him, and after Saito’s father gave him his debit card, they waved his parents goodbye as they drove off, leaving the two kids alone.

“Well, we got a few hours,” Saito announced as he and Louise turned back towards the mall entrance. Clearing his throat, he then gestured towards the building and declared, “Welcome to Raccoon City, Louise.”

Louise looked at the boy who had kindly offered to take her in, then smiled and replied, “Thank you.”

Saito smiled back, then together they walked into the mall, eager to get started and get Louise whatever she needed.

~

Once their shopping was done, Saito was happy that he was put in charge of the money. Louise, as it turned out, had very high tastes due to her being a ‘noblewoman’, and he had to talk her down from purchasing the most expensive items more often than not. They had still spent a couple hundred dollars on clothes, but nothing too outrageous. Nor would it cause his dad to have a heart attack, which he suspected was the main reason why Louise backed down without too much of a fight. Had it been her money, he suspected she would have blown it all the first chance she got.

“So, how do I look?” Louise asked as she stepped out from the changing room.

Saito studied her for a moment, taking it all in. She was no longer wearing her academy uniform, with only the broach wrapped around her neck remaining. Instead, she was now wearing a pair of light blue jeans, a bright red, long-sleeved jacket over a white shirt that had the image of Mr. Raccoon on the front. Instead of walking around in a pair of black heels, she was now wearing a pair of red tennis shoes with black trim. All in all, she no longer looked out of place, and so he nodded while giving her a thumbs up.

“It looks good on you,” he admitted. Louise smiled, then went back into the changing room. After she handed Saito the clothes she wanted, he walked up to the counter and paid for them, then returned to Louise so that she could change back. Both of them figured it would be best for her not to wear her academy uniform for the time being.

“Okay, I’m good,” Louise announced as she left the changing room, stuffing her uniform into a bag. She held onto it while Saito carried the rest, and with one final nod they walked out of the store. As they walked, they checked the time and saw that they had an hour and a half until Saito’s parents returned.

“What do you want to do now?” Saito asked, scratching his head before looking at Louise.

Despite her now living with them, he still felt somewhat awkward, a feeling that he easily recognized in her as well. She moved to answer after a moment, then her stomach began to growl. Am embarrassed blush erupted across her face, and Saito laughed before turning around and walking away, gesturing for her to follow. Without saying a word, Louise followed after him, and together they walked to the mall’s food court. As with many things, Louise was looking around the complex with open wonder, taking in the smells and sights before they decided on an option and ordered their food. Once they received what they ordered, they chose a table fairly isolated from everyone else, then sat down and began to dig in. Saito immediately began to eat his pizza, while Louise scrunched up her face in slight disgust.

“What? You eat pizza with your hands,” Saito pointed out, and Louise rolled her eyes before politely beginning to eat her pasta with the proper utensils.

“Improper table manners aside,” Louse said after taking a small bite, “I don’t think I’ve thanked you for taking me in.”

“Ah, don’t mention it.” Saito waved her off. “It was the least I could do.”

“No, the least you could have done is leave me be. You and your family are under no obligation to help me, yet you did regardless,” Louise countered, pointing her fork at Saito in emphasis. She then put the utensil down and reiterated, “Thank you, Saito. I honestly don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t extended your offer.”

“Oh, uh…you’re welcome,” Saito replied, a faint blush popping up on his face. The two teenagers stared silently at each other for a moment, then went back to eating.

“So,” Saito started after a few moments of silence, “you have any questions? I’d be more than happy to answer them.”

“Yes, actually,” Louise answered after taking a sip of her Coca-Cola. At first, the taste was odd and discomforting, but after a few sips she was finding it to be enjoyable. “I’d like to know about you and your family, for starters.”

“Ah, we’re nothing special,” Saito admitted while giving a slight shrug. “Mom and Dad are both from Tokyo, Japan. It’s where they met and got married. Mom’s an English teacher while my Dad’s a salesman for Sony.”

Seeing Louise’s confused expression, Saito clarified while pointing at a mural on the wall depicting the world map, “See those big islands on the right side of the wall? That’s Japan, and Tokyo is its capital. That makes my parents Japanese.”

“Ah, I see,” Louise stated as she studied the wall.

It was a very stylized map, containing iconography associated with various countries around the world and big circled stars depicting their capitals. Raccoon City was marked by the head of a smiling raccoon in the midwestern United States, but otherwise no other cities were marked. Saito noticed that she remained fixated mostly on Europe, which reminded him of her supposed origin. If what she had told him was true, and he wasn’t entirely convinced that it was, Halkegenia and Europe were surprisingly similar in culture, language, and geography.

“If your parents are from…Japan,” she started as she turned back to Saito, “how come you live here in the…United States?”

“It’s because of my dad and his job,” Saito answered. “The Umbrella Corporation is one of Sony’s biggest clients, and Raccoon City is one of their biggest headquarters. So my dad had to move here, and my mom went with him. They were only supposed to live here for a few years until their work visa expired, but then I was born and immediately made a U.S. citizen. After that, my parents decided to stay and fully immigrated. We’ve been here ever since.”

“Wait, your parents are Japanese but you’re American?” Louise asked in confusion, and Saito nodded.

“Japanese-American, technically, but yeah. If you’re born in the United States, you’re immediately a U.S. citizen,” Saito declared, then took a sip of his Coca-Cola.

“Ah,” Louise replied. Clearly she didn’t quite understand how that worked, but at the very least she understood the end result. She then glanced at the logo of the Umbrella Corporation high up on the wall, and while staring at it she stated, “While I was at the hospital, I kept seeing that symbol.”

“That’s the logo of the Umbrella Corporation,” Saito explained.

“I figured as such. Certainly looked like an umbrella,” she replied, then turned back to Saito. “What, exactly, are they?”

“A _big_ multinational pharmaceutical company,” Saito answered while spreading out his arms in emphasis. “Medicine, drugs, cosmetics, shampoo, you name it, they make it. They practically built Raccoon City. We wouldn’t be nearly as big as we are without them.”

“Did they make the hospital?”

“Spencer Memorial? Yeah, plus a few others.” Saito nodded then took another bite of his pizza. “They actually own a lot of buildings around the city, and not just hospitals. Schools, utilities, subways, a bunch of stuff. After the recession a few years ago, they stepped in and helped revitalize everything. City’s been partners with them ever since.”

Louise furrowed her brow in suspicion, then pointed out, “If they own that hospital, that means they kept me locked up when I wanted to leave.”

“Eh, I doubt that,” Saito countered with a small, dismissive wave. “If anything, I’d chalk it up to Doctor Bard being an asshole. Sure, Umbrella’s had its share of controversies over the years, but what company hasn’t? Far as I’m concerned, the Umbrella Corporation makes a bunch of really neat stuff and is the backbone of Raccoon City’s economy.”

Louise still wasn’t entirely convinced, but she let the matter drop and continued eating. After that, the two teenagers kept making idle conversation, with Louise asking questions and Saito answering them to the best of his ability. Sometimes the question was broad, such as a general overview of the world that she remained clueless of. Other times, the questions were more specific, such as his family, himself, and the country she now found herself in. What confused Saito the most was when he had to explain things that people nowadays should have easily been familiar with, like electricity and what cars were. When they saw a plane pass overhead through the mall’s skylights, he even had to explain what a plane was. It was all very confusing to him, but Louise was able to catch on to what he was explaining fairly quickly. This convinced him that Louise was a very smart girl, if perhaps slightly delusional.

That being said, the ‘world’ she described herself as hailing from was, admittedly, very interesting to hear about. The culture, its beliefs, its magic system. If nothing else, he certainly wouldn’t mind reading a series of books, or even watch a cartoon or anime, about it.

Once they finished their food, they threw the remains in the trash then placed their trays in the bin. Looking at the time, they saw that they had thirty minutes left before Saito’s parents came back, so they decided to walk to where they would be picking them up. Saito and Louise walked in silence, getting lost while letting the sounds of the mall wash over them. When they stepped outside the mall, however, they found that they were not in front of the department store they first entered. Instead, they found themselves in one of the back loading areas, and Saito groaned while Louise looked around in confusion.

“Ah, crap. Not again,” he groaned, and Louise looked at him in confusion. Smiling sheepishly, he rubbed the back of his head and admitted, “We may have taken a wrong turn and went out the wrong place. Sorry…”

Louise stared at him with no small amount of irritation, then she rolled her eyes and began walking back towards the mall. Saito followed, but as they approached the door, they heard a commotion coming from a nearby alley. It sounded like two men talking in hushed whispers, and both teenagers looked at each other for a moment as they wondered what to do. Then, when Louise gently placed her bag down and began slowly walking towards the corner, Saito’s eyes widened and followed after her.

Peeking out from behind the brick wall, they saw three men haggling with each other. One was holding a thick wad of cash, while another was holding a bag containing a green mixture. The other was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest, looking intimidating. Saito was more than familiar with the famous Arklay Mountain Herbs, but whatever was in that bag was not for medicinal purposes. Realizing what they had accidentally stumbled into, he gently grasped Louise’s shoulder and pulled her way, silently telling her to remain quiet.

Then, as they turned around, they bumped into a fourth man, knocking them to the ground and letting out a surprised yelp that quickly caught the attention of the other three.

“Well, well. What do we got here?” the large man asked as Louise and Saito got up to their feet and backed away. He placed himself protectively in front of Louise as the other three participants in the drug deal rushed over, leaving the two teenagers completely surrounded.

“Who are these two?” the man holding the money demanded.

“Bunch of nosy teenagers, that’s who,” the big man answered, crossing his heavily tattooed arms while scowling at both Saito and Louise.

“Look,” Saito tried to say, “we just got lost and turned around. We didn’t see nothing.”

“That right?” a third skinny man asked, frowning deeply.

“Yes, right?” Saito pointedly asked Louise, but to his alarm he saw that she had a scowl on her face. She was glaring at the four criminals, and it was clear she had no idea of the danger they were in.

“What were you doing back here?” she demanded, and the four men looked at each other before chuckling.

“Just selling a bunch of homemade herbs, that’s all,” a short, rotund man answered. “Why, you want some?”

“No, we don’t,” Louise answered. After a moment of hard silence, Louise demanded, “I’m going to ask you to leave me and my friend alone.”

“Or what? We’re not doing anything,” the large man replied, then Louise pulled out her wand and pointed it at him.

“Or I’ll make you,” she answered. Everyone stared at her, then the four criminals began to laugh hysterically.

“Hahaha, this bitch crazy?! What are you going to do, poke me with a stick?!” one of them asked, and Louise growled.

“I’ll cast a spell!”

“AH-HAHAHA!” the laughter increased in volume, and Louise’s frustration increased. Saito could have sworn that steam was coming out of her ears, but at the same time he stared worryingly at the wand. The rational part of his brain was telling him to stop her before she did something stupid, but the rest was telling him to trust her. Locked with indecision, he didn’t have time to react before the big man pulled out a small knife and began to approach them with a large grin on his face.

“Here, let me show you what a real piece—” he began, only for Louise to shift her aim towards his chest.

“Push!” Louise shouted, then to everyone’s shock, a small explosion went off in front of the man’s chest. He let out a brief yell of pain as he was flung back, crashing into a metal dumpster with enough force to dent it slightly.

“HOLY SHIT, WHAT THE FUCK?!” the three remaining criminals shouted, stumbling back while Louise bit back a curse.

“GUN! GET THE HELL OUTTA HERE!” the dealer shouted as he ran after the fleeing customer. The other dealer helped the blown back man to his feet, then gave Louise a fearful look before turning tail and running as fast as they could.

Saito stared at them as they disappeared behind a corner, then slowly turned his head towards the dented dumpster. His mind was running a mile a minute, trying its best to comprehend what he had just seen.

“Gagh, that was supposed to be a gust of wind, not an explosion!” Louise shouted in frustration, holding her wand close and gripping it tightly.

“That…was that…?” Saito shakily asked while pointing his trembling finger at the dumpster.

Louise sighed, then answered, “Yes, that was magic. I was _trying_ to push that brute back with wind magic, not blow him up, though. Founder, why do I keep screwing up!”

Saito stared at the dumpster, then slowly turned towards Louise as she clenched her eyes shut and clutched her hair tightly in frustration. Only now did everything click into place for the young boy. What Louise just did was indisputably magic, and he couldn’t chalk up what he saw to a gas leak. Neither could the four men who were Louise’s victims, as well as the dented dumpster providing further proof towards its existence. Louise Vallière had just performed actual magic, and everything that had happened to him when he met her now made sense. The portal he had seen but no one else, the explosion, her strange clothes, her complete lack of knowledge about the world while knowing so much about another. Louise truly was a mage from another world, now trapped in theirs.

“That…that was SO COOL!” Saito shouted, his fear giving way for excitement as he turned back towards Louise. She stared for a moment, disbelief on her face, then she tilted her head as her eyes went wide.

“Eh?”

“You just blew them up! That was badass! I wish I could do that!” he added. Louise looked at him as though he was speaking a foreign language, completely unused to hearing praise towards her magical abilities.

“…Really?”

“Yeah! That was _awesome_ , Louise! You had them running with their tails between their legs! Hah! Serves those druggie bastards right!”

Louise stared at him in silence for a moment, then decided to roll with it and accept the rare compliment. She then straightened herself as she began twirling her wand in her hand and admitted, “Yes, it was awesome, wasn’t it?”

“Hell yeah, it was! What else can you do?”

Louise’s haughty expression briefly fell and she quietly admitted, “Just…explosions.”

“Oh, cool! Explosions are _awesome_!” Saito declared with stars in his eyes. Louise stared at him in disbelief. Then before she could say anything else, Saito’s eyes widened and he shouted, “Oh, shit! Mom and Dad are going to be here any minute! We’ll talk about this later. Oh man, they’re going to be—”

“Wait,” Louise said, stopping him as Saito picked up the bags and prepared to run. He looked at her in confusion, then she quietly requested, “Can we just…keep this to ourselves for the moment? I don’t know why, but I don’t think it’s safe for me to have people…know right now.”

Saito stared at her silently for a moment, then remembered what she had told him earlier. About why she thought Spencer Memorial Hospital was keeping her despite Louise wanting to leave. The sobering thought brought him down from his euphoria, and he slowly nodded in agreement. Louise nodded back, then she pocketed her wand, picked up her bag, then together they ran back inside the building towards where Saito’s parents would be picking them up.

[~][~]


	3. The Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Louise settles in with the Hiragas, all the while events around Raccoon City march ever close to its climactic conclusion. At the same time, plans spearheaded by Karin the Heavy Wind are set into motion, determined to rescue Louise from wherever she is.

**Familiar Evil (ZnT/Resident Evil)**  
Chapter 3: The Calm  
[~][~]

_Tristain Academy of Magic_

_Kingdom of Tristain, Halkegenia_

Karin couldn’t remember the last time the famous Tristain Academy of Magic was this quiet outside the dead of night. Normally she would have assumed that the students and faculty were sleeping, but as the noon sun shone its light through the stained glass windows of her temporary residence, she was once again reminded that this was no ordinary matter.

“More tea, my Lady?” a young commoner maid asked, holding up a teapot and offering to pour into her empty teacup.

“No thank you, Siesta,” Karin replied placing the cup onto a silver tray. Siesta took the cup without question, then politely bowed and stepped back to await further instruction.

Karin once again took the moment to study the young girl. Siesta had been assigned by Headmaster Osmund himself to cater to her every need until this matter was resolved, and like all of her personal servants back at the Vallière estate, Karin took the time to get to know her. She knew not all nobles did this, with most seeming to forget that commoners even existed, but the Vallières knew the proper order of things. Commoners were to serve the nobility, but in turn the nobility was meant to care for them. It was something that Siesta clearly appreciated, and after only a few days her service had markedly improved.

Siesta herself wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, hailing from a small village near the coast named Tarbes. She was the same age as Louise, if a head taller, with a much more developed figure. She was also surprisingly well-read, for a commoner at least. Her most unusual trait was the color of her hair, being jet black instead of more normal colors like brown, blonde, blue, or green. Admittedly, she was quite beautiful, and Karin imagined that she had managed to catch quite a few eyes around the academy. But she didn’t concern herself with such trivialities. Instead, she focused on far more important matters.

“So, Siesta,” Karin began, prompting Siesta to stand straight up, “you were there when the summoning ritual was performed, yes?”

Siesta nibbled on her bottom lip for a moment, the sign of a nervous tick, then nodded. “Yes, my Lady. A few of the other servants and I were there to help the students with their new familiars as needed.”

“How would you describe the event going?”

“At first, completely normal. Or at least, I assume normal. This is only my first year working at the academy, so I haven’t seen another ritual performed before. I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologize,” Karin assured, her face neutral as she stared the commoner girl down and gently placed her hands atop each other on her lap. She added, “Please, continue.”

“Of course,” Siesta replied with a quick nod. “The other students cast their spells one by one until only Louise was left. I got the feeling that she was hiding from the others, then Kirche von Zerbst called her out.”

Karin couldn’t help but tsk and shake her head. She shouldn’t be surprised that a Zerbst set into motion the chain of events that unfolded. After all, their feud with the Vallières was legendary ever since a Zerbst stole the fiancé of a Vallière. It didn’t help matters that the two estates were right across the border of Tristain and Germania from each other, so if another war broke out they’d be the first at the frontlines. From what Karin had gathered, that feud had continued into the academy, with Zerbst becoming the ringleader of her daughter’s bullies and tormentors. Louise had never told them how bad her fellow students treated her, or perhaps she had and Karin had dismissed it? She didn’t know which was worse; either her daughter didn’t trust her enough to tell the truth, or Karin had ceased to care.

“Speaking of Zerbst,” Karin remarked coldly, “how long were she and the other students bullying my daughter?”

“Ever since I got here,” Siesta admitted, flinching under Karin’s ice-cold gaze, “but some of the older servants told me it started a few months into her first year after her…accidents kept happening and it became obvious they weren’t going away.”

Karin stared at Siesta for a few more seconds, then closed her eyes and nodded. Louise’s inability to cast magic was well-known to her. It had first manifested when she was but a child, and over the years the Vallière family had spared no expense in finding a way to move past it. The best tutors, the best wands, the best study material, the best potions, and everything else they could think of. Nothing worked. Instead, each and every time her Louise cast a spell, it inevitably and catastrophically failed and resulted in an explosion of varying strength. Sometimes the explosion would barely be felt by anyone. Other times it was strong enough to shatter boulders. While certainly impressive in the right circumstances, it wasn’t proper magic, and over the years it became obvious to Karin and the rest of her family that Louise was a failure of a mage. It had broken her heart to admit it, but the truth was obvious. Louise would never be a properly cast magic, and the best thing to do for her and the Vallière family was to give her as comfortable a life as possible while being ushered away from view.

Was it cruel? Perhaps, but Karin had honestly thought it to be the best for Louise. They had tried to prepare her the best they could, shifting her studies away from magic towards being a proper wife to a nobleman, but Louise continued to stubbornly insist on trying to correct her magic. She had convinced them to give her one last chance at the academy, the best source of magical learning on the continent of Halkegenia. If they couldn’t fix her, then Louise would accept her family’s wishes with no more reluctance. Karin and her husband had accepted Louise’s proposal, fully expecting to receive nothing but disappointment once again.

She never expected this, though. In all her years, she never expected that Louise’s spell would backfire in such a way as to remove her entirely.

“What happened when Louise attempted to cast her summoning spell?” Karin asked after taking a deep breath. She had already heard the details from Jean as well as a few students, including the son of General Gramont and a girl from Gallia named Tabitha, but she wanted to hear from as many people as possible.

“At first, nothing. No explosion, no familiar, just…nothing,” Siesta revealed. “Professor Colbert was about to stop her, but then Louise started trying to cast again. When that failed, she begged the Professor to let her try one more time, and he let her. After that, she started casting a…different spell than what the others used.”

“Yes, I had heard as much. Do you remember what she said?” Karin asked, and Siesta hummed for a bit before shaking her head.

“No, I wasn’t close enough to hear her clearly. There may have been something about ‘universe,’ but I’m not entirely certain,” Siesta admitted. “When she finished casting that spell, though, another of her explosions went off. This one was strong enough to throw everyone onto their backs, and when the smoke cleared…Louise was gone. After that, Professor Colbert ordered the students back to their dorms. I don’t know what happened after that.”

“I see,” Karin said and slowly nodded, absorbing the information.

Siesta’s interpretation of events was consistent with everyone else’s, if with more added details regarding Louise’s bullying. Many of the students she had interrogated had attempted to downplay their involvement, with the exception of Kirche von Zerbst who had outright admitted to it. There had been a hint of regret in her voice, but for the most part Karin did not care. She did appreciate that the Zerbst was honorable enough to admit to it, at least.

“Thank you, Siesta. You are dismissed,” Karin ordered, waving her away.

Siesta politely bowed and brought her hands together in front of her waist, then asked, “Of course, my Lady. Do you require anything else of me before I leave?”

“Nothing at the moment,” Karin replied and Siesta bowed again, then left the room and gently closed the iron-clad wooden door behind her.

Once the door was closed, Karin let out a sigh she had long been holding in and hung her head. She felt exhausted, having hardly gotten any sleep after her hasty departure from the Vallière estate. She was in such a rush, she had accidentally grabbed a magical staff instead of her sword wand, and until her husband, Sandorian, and two elder daughters, Éléonore, and Cattleya, arrived in a few days, she’d be without it. Her only regret from not having it on her was that she would have been vastly more intimidating towards Colbert and Osmund had she held it, but in the end it wasn’t needed.

More importantly, Karin’s thoughts drifted towards what happened to her daughter, and the question as to why it occurred. In all her years of experience and learning, Karin had never heard of a summoning spell backfiring so dramatically. It was perhaps the only spell capable of being used by everyone, regardless of magical affinity, and it was supposed to bring her daughter a familiar. Instead, it made her disappear. That raised the question as to what, exactly, happened. Had her daughter accidentally killed herself, like so many, including Karin herself, feared? But Colbert had dismissed that early on due to the lack of remains, which was perhaps the only relief she felt regarding everything.

That left a far more terrifying option, that the summoning spell had been reversed in some way. Rather than bringing Louise’s familiar to her, instead Louise was brought _to_ her familiar, leaving her trapped and stranded Founder knows where. How the reverse-summoning, as Colbert dubbed it, happened was still a mystery. The simplest explanation was that Louise, by casting a different spell, had somehow altered the spell on accident, reversing the magical flow. That was unlikely, however, as Colbert had pulled some reports from prior years of students changing the standard spell with no adverse effects. None were as drastic as Louise’s incantation, mostly being frivolous additions to the base spell meant to emphasize their personalities, but the point remained.

The other, and far more terrifying prospect, was that her spell had been tampered with in some way by an outside actor. An actor who managed to reach through Louise’s summoning spell through some unknown magic and pull Louise to them, kidnapping her. The kidnapping of noble children wasn’t unheard of, nor was it unheard of for fallen mages to resort to such barbaric acts, so hostile magic being involved wasn’t an impossibility. Many times had a mage’s magic been turned against them by another, more skilled mage in an effort to kidnap them for ransom, but never before had either of them heard of the summoning spell being the targeting vector.

In any case, it was clear to Karin and the others that Louise was no longer with them. Whether she was trapped alone in the wilderness or held captive by some unknown party, she didn’t know. Either way, Karin was determined to fix this mess as soon as possible. She had already reached out to the royal family for their support in what she knew was the beginning of a rescue operation, but in the meantime Karin would assist in finding ways to get to Louise and bring her home.

At the same time, as Karin’s exhaustion threatened to catch up with her and she momentarily swayed from side to side, she couldn’t help but think about the past treatment of her daughter. Both from her classmates, as well as from herself. Had the stress, mistreatment, and outright abandonment in some cases, finally gotten to her? Was Karin herself, in some way, to blame for this entire mess to begin with? If that was the case, then Karin could have felt no greater shame, which motivated her to keep moving forward despite her exhaustion. Her flesh and blood deserved no less.

Louise may have felt abandoned by her family before, but Karin de la Vallière vowed that wouldn’t happen again. She could only hope that wherever Louise was she was safe and sound, but Karin figured she knew the truth. Louise was lost, scared, and alone, and that formed a pit in her stomach like nothing else.

“Don’t worry, Louise,” Karin muttered to herself as she rose from her chair and walked to the door, intending to join the other faculty in combing through the library. “I’m coming. Please, Founder, keep her safe.”

~

_August 25th, 1998 12:30 PM_

_Hiraga Apartment_

_Raccoon City, Arklay County, United States of America_

Louise had been with the Hiraga family for three days now, and she was still finding it somewhat difficult to adjust. She found it infinitely better than being in the hospital at all times, to be sure, but going from having servants do everything for her, from cleaning her room to simply changing her clothes, to having to do most things for herself was quite an adjustment. There was also the fact that the Hiraga family was, by their standards, an average middle-class American family. They couldn’t afford the greater luxuries of their society, so their resources were fairly limited.

Still, what they did have blew everything Louise thought she knew out of the water. By Halkegenian standards, the quality of life that the Hiragas, and people like them, had would have placed them at or perhaps even above the wealthiest of nobles. Ovens and stoves that could cook their food in a few hours, at most, which would normally take nearly half a day back home. Constant running water easily available for use at the turn of a knob. So much access to food that the idea of running out was more of a temporary annoyance rather than a terrifying prospect. Machines capable of washing their clothes or dishes and utensils for them. Handheld devices that could connect with and communicate with people all over the world in an instant. Glass bulbs that could emit enough light to fill an entire room. A personal vehicle that could go faster, farther, and longer than any horse could ever dream of. Even their apartment offered more insulation and protection from the outside world than most homes in Tristain could afford, even those enchanted with magic. Airconditioning alone was a godsend. What amazed her the most was that none of these devices were powered by magic. Instead, most were powered through something called electricity, which sounded to her like carefully controlled and harnessed lightning.

At first, everything she saw caused her nervous confusion, but soon that went away in favor of curious fascination. Technology had never been something she’d ever really considered, having previously felt that it was something purely relegated to commoners. Most mages she knew felt the same way, and really the only exception she could think of was Professor Colbert’s silly experiments where he tried to combine magic with technology. Before she’d completely dismissed what he had made, but now Louise could think of nothing more than trying to figure out how these things worked.

‘ _If Professor Colbert was here, I doubt he’d ever want to leave_ ,’ Louise silently ruminated as she flicked the light switch inside her room up and down, causing the overhead light to turn on and off with each movement.

From what she understood after Mr. Hiraga explained it to her, their apartment was constantly receiving a steady flow of electricity from the Raccoon City power plant, which burned coal to produce steam from a pressurized boiler filled with water. A turbine, which she likened to a windmill of sorts, was then moved by that steam, generating power which was then distributed across the entire city on a constant basis. When the light switch was flipped on, the flow of electricity was unimpeded, allowing the incandescent light bulb’s filament to react and emit light. By flipping the switch off, however, the power was cut off, meaning no light was emitted.

The same principle worked for every other electrical appliance the Hiragas had, from their radio and television to their oven, toaster, and microwave. She still didn’t quite understand how the radio and television worked, but she wasn’t ashamed to admit that the box capable of displaying moving images with accompanying sound locked her in a trance for several hours the first time she saw it, and she spent nearly the entire night listening to music on the radio. It was like having a concert or play brought to her, and she couldn’t get enough.

“Louise, lunch is ready!” Mrs. Hiraga called out from the kitchen, snapping Louise away from her thoughts.

“Coming!” Louise replied. Turning off the light, she walked across the hardwood flooring, her sock-covered feet nearly sliding against the smooth surface.

That was another thing she was still somewhat getting used to, although she could easily understand the logic behind it. The Hiragas did not wear their shoes while walking inside the apartment. Slippers and socks were perfectly fine, but their shoes were to remain near the front door. Apparently, it was a cultural holdover from their homeland of Japan, and although the Hiragas had adapted to an American way of life for the most part, to the point where Saito outright considered himself American, they still practiced what they could. From their strange utensils called chopsticks to the artistic-looking kanjis hung on the walls like paintings, it was clear that Saito’s parents wished to honor where they came from. A few times Louise caught Saito talking to his parents in Japanese, a language she couldn’t hope to understand at the moment. She got the impression that, before her arrival, the family mostly spoke to each other in Japanese when not in public.

As Louise approached, she caught the warm scent of rice and noodles coming from steaming bowls. It was placed on the end of a round table, and opposite her seat was Mrs. Hiraga. She had a bowl of her own waiting before her, and she offered the young noblewoman a warm smile as Louise pulled out her chair and sat down across from her host.

“Thank you for the meal, Mrs. Hiraga,” Louise thanked the woman, whose smile brightened before she closed her eyes and hung her head.

“Itadakimasu,” Mrs. Hiraga said, then picked up a pair of wooden chopsticks that she had laid out for her.

As the woman expertly picked up clumps of rice, Louise looked at her own pair of chopsticks with a furrowed brow. Picking them up, one in each hand, she narrowed her eyes then stared at her food, silently issuing a challenge that would not go unanswered.

“ _With the Founder as my witness, I’m going to get you to work this time_ ,” Louise muttered in Gallian as she passed the left stick to her right hand, then attempted to copy what Mrs. Hiraga was doing and hold both at the same time. Louise’s form wasn’t near as stable, but unlike the past few times they weren’t flying out of her hands and onto the floor.

Happy so far with her small victory, Louise shakily moved her hand towards the rice bowl and stabbed the ends of her chopsticks into the white mound. Scrunching up her face in concentration, she pinched the rice and formed a small clump. Louise chewed on her lower lip as she brought the pinch of rice out from the bowl and towards her face. Growing more and more optimistic by the moment, Louise let out a small smile and opened her mouth, eager to accept the nourishment just inches away, only for her hopes to be dashed as her fingers slipped. One of the chopsticks flew out to the side, clattering against the tile floor of the kitchen and coming to a stop near a counter, while the pinch of hot rice fell down and landed on her jeans. With an eerily calm and neutral expression, Louise placed the lone remaining chopstick back on the table, trying her best to ignore the chuckles Mrs. Hiraga was sending her way.

“Having trouble there, Louise?” she asked, and Louise gave her a flat, unamused look.

“Your people don’t know how to make utensils,” Louise declared. Rather than take offense, Mrs. Hiraga merely laughed harder, and Louise continued, “Seriously, it’s like you looked at normal forks, knives, and spoons and went ‘no, that’s too easy to eat with.’”

Shaking her head in amusement, Mrs. Hiraga replied, “Yes, I hear that quite a lot.”

Having already anticipated this, Mrs. Hiraga pulled out another pair of chopsticks and handed them to Louise. Then, to the noblewoman’s surprise, she got up and walked around to help Louise properly grip the chopsticks.

“It takes some getting used to,” she admitted, guiding Louise’s fingers into the proper hold, “but once you get the hang of it, using chopsticks is quite easy.”

“If you say so,” Louise replied in slight disbelief. She had been attempting to use chopsticks ever since she arrived to no avail. At first, it was simply to blend in with her hosts, but by now it had become a challenge she had issued to herself. Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière was many things, but a quitter was not one of them, and she was not about to lose to a pair of wooden sticks.

After a few minutes of clumsy attempts to follow Mrs. Hiraga’s instructions, Louise began to shakily bring the chopsticks to her mouth. She made sure not to grip them too tightly, but at the same time keeping adequate pressure so that they remained where they were. Finally. Louise managed to place the clump of hot rice dipped in soy sauce onto her tongue, and she quickly closed it shut and triumphantly swallowed.

“Yes, I got it!” she cheered, and Mrs. Hiraga clapped and smiled at Louise’s victory. In the grand scheme of things, both knew it was inconsequential, but it was something Louise could be proud of at the moment.

“See, I knew you could do it,” Mrs. Hiraga declared, then sat back down and started eating again.

The two continued their meal, peppered with sporadic conversation about various subjects, mostly about life in Raccoon City and the Hiragas themselves. Frequently Louise’s status was discussed. While at the moment the Hiragas were hosting her, it was clear that was to be a temporary arrangement before the local governments could figure out what to do with her. They had no idea what timeframe ‘temporary’ was, though. It could be months or even years before a decision was made. Until then, she was to stay with the Hiraga family, which posed another problem. Both of Saito’s parents worked, and the school year had started the day before which meant Saito wouldn’t be around for most of the day.

Besides the fact that apparently the United States valued educating its entire populace, that left her at a bit of a crossroads. Louise had no educational records of any kind, at least any that the United States was privy to. That being said, it was clear that she was behind on several subjects, meaning that attempting to enroll her in a public school would be a recipe for disaster. Luckily, Mrs. Hiraga had more than enough experience in teaching people her age, and so she graciously volunteered to help catch Louise up. So far, Louise had been attacking the subject material with as much gusto as she did with magic, and was proving to be a remarkably quick study. With any luck, and assuming she didn’t find a way home by then, Louise would be able to enter public schooling by the end of the first semester.

Louise’s past was occasionally brought up, but Louise made sure to omit certain details. Part of her felt guilty about lying to her gracious hosts, but she honestly felt that there was no way they’d believe her. Her story of being from another world and brought to Earth through a magic spell gone awry was just too outlandish, even for her. The only reason why Saito believed her was because he was there when she arrived, then saw her perform magic firsthand right in front of him. There was no guarantee his parents would be of the same mind. At best, they would dismiss her story as playful fantasy. At worst, they’d kick her out of her home and send her to an insane asylum. While she doubted they’d actually do that, she didn’t want to put it up to chance.

As for why she hadn’t openly demonstrated her magic to them yet, behind the pristine surface of Raccoon City, she felt that there was a darker undercurrent just waiting to spring up. One that had eyes trained on her, waiting like a hungry predator. She couldn’t count the number of times she thought someone, or something, was looking at her, and she was certain that the Umbrella Corporation was far more than what they let on. The scary part was, though, that the Hiragas and the people of Raccoon City seemed completely oblivious. She supposed the only reason why she was cautious was because she wasn’t from Raccoon City, and there was always the possibility that she was just overreacting, but she couldn’t help but feel that something horribly wrong was on its way.

It was then that the television, still turned to the local news station, brought up a news item that caught Mrs. Hiraga’s attention. Turning around in her seat, Louise turned to face it and, to her surprise, saw a news reporter standing in front of the Spencer Memorial Hospital’s front entry way.

 _“We have just received confirmation that yet another victim of a brutal mauling has been admitted at Spencer Memorial_ ,” the lady stated, speaking into her microphone while facing the camera. “ _This has been the tenth attack this week, and the thirtieth since the beginning of August. Raccoon City News can’t help but draw comparisons to the brutal cannibalistic attacks at the beginning of the summer, leading this reporter to ask: are these latest attacks linked in some way?_ ”

“Cannibal attacks?” Louise asked, staring at the tv screen as the reporter continued to speak. “What is she talking about?”

“We don’t know,” Mrs. Hiraga replied, frowning deeply while continuing to watch. “All we know is that, starting back in May, there were a series of horrific attacks in the outskirts of Raccoon City. Dozens of people were…eaten.”

“ _Eaten_?” Louise repeated, looking back in horror at Mrs. Hiraga, who grimly nodded back.

“Yes, eaten. Not by animals, though, at least not all of them.” She shook her head and grimaced. “Some were eaten by people. For two months the RPD couldn’t make heads or tails of it. There was no suspect, no motive, nothing, so eventually Chief Irons assigned the Special Tactics and Rescue Service to the case.”

“The S.T.A.R.S., right? I remember Saito talking about them,” Louise admitted, and Mrs. Hiraga nodded.

“Yes, them. The S.T.A.R.S., being the best of the best in the entire Raccoon City Police Department, were tasked with finding out what was going on, and in July they tracked the cases, linked to some unknown disease, to somewhere in the Arklay Mountains. After that, all twelve of them went in. Only four came back alive.”

“Founder…” Louise muttered. Saito had mentioned how the S.T.A.R.S. were practically wiped out after a mission went horribly wrong, but she didn’t think it was related to this. “Did they say what happened?”

“They never got the chance,” Mrs. Hiraga answered with a frown. “All they said was that they were launching an investigation into Umbrella, which they claimed was responsible somehow. But since they lost so many men, they were disbanded shortly afterwards and the case reassigned to the RPD itself.”

“Umbrella…” Louise frowned, her suspicions once again rising, but Mrs. Hiraga shook her head.

“The RPD found no evidence to back up their claims,” she pointed out. “I admit, it’s a little fishy, but I trust Chief Irons and the RPD. In any case, we thought that was the end of it, but it appears that was wrong.”

Louise turned back to the tv, where Doctor Nathaniel Bard had come out to give a statement.

“ _Let me assure you, Spencer Memorial Hospital, and all the other hospitals and clinics owned and operated by the Umbrella Corporation, is doing everything in our power to ensure the health, safety, and wellbeing of all residents of Raccoon City_ ,” he declared, but Louise couldn’t help but narrow her eyes at him. “ _But we cannot do this alone. We need your help to get to the bottom of these horrific attacks. Please report any and all suspicious activity to the Raccoon City police so that we can put an end to this. Let me be clear, however, that rumors of the so-called ‘cannibal disease’ spreading into Raccoon City is nothing more than baseless rumor. There is nothing to fear, but above all else, do not give in to panic. Like a miracle, one day this will all go away, and we can return to life as normal_.”

The words Doctor Bard was offering certainly sounded nice, but after spending a week under his ‘care,’ Louise didn’t believe him. She wanted to protest, but Mrs. Hiraga seemed to take him at his word, and so she decided to drop the matter. Besides, she had far more important matters to deal with, especially once they finished their meal and pulled the thick history textbook that they had been reading from back out.

“Now then, let’s continue where we left off,” Mrs. Hiraga began. “The first civilizations in the world all formed around river valleys, with the first being between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Mesopotamia…”

~

_September 2nd, 1998 6:15 PM_

_Raccoon City Public Library_

_Raccoon City, Arklay County, United States of America_

“Ugh, I hate geometry,” Saito groaned as he buried his face into his textbook, trying to give his brain some much needed rest after hours of study, both in and out of class.

“Geometry…that’s the study of shapes, right?” Louise tentatively asked, looking over her own pile of books that was substantially taller than Saito’s.

“Yes, it is, and it’s stupid,” Saito continued to complain, turning his head to look at Louise while keeping his cheek on the paper. He was hoping for a look of sympathy from her, but instead she merely rolled her eyes and opened one of the thick textbooks she had procured.

“Well, whining about it isn’t going to help you,” Louise declared with a huff. “Frankly, you should be honored you’re getting an education in the first place. Where I come from, that’s a privilege reserved to a few, not a right given to everyone.”

Saito flatly stared at her, wondering if her proclamation was something she honestly believed wholeheartedly in or if she had been spending too much time with his mother. Probably both, if he was being honest. Nevertheless, he had no desire to hear yet another lecture on how important his education was and pulled himself up off the table to return to his studies.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Geez, thought it was bad when it was just my mom telling me that…” Saito grumbled, noticing Louise’s smirk from the corner of his eyes.

The two silently continued their reading, basking in the silence of the Raccoon City Public Library that was only occasionally broken by hushed whispers or muffled noise from the construction site next door. It was an old building, built in a similar style to the art museum that later became the Raccoon City Police Department precinct. Not including the basement, the library had two floors. The first floor consisted of the main entry hall, which included the receptionist’s desk nestled into a dividing wall that led to the public study room. Saito and Louise chose to study there in relative quiet, giving them a grand view of the statue displaying a woman wearing a robe while holding several books in her arms on the back wall, as well as the breakroom situated on the back eastern corner.

Beyond the main entry hall, and connected via a central corridor that ran most of the perimeter of the building except for the north side, were the two main library wings. Both of them were divided into two floors, although the second floor was really more a walkway around a massive opening that let the elaborate murals of angels battling demons painted onto the ceiling be displayed proudly. Large windows were on the north side of the library wings’ first floor, offering a grand view of the Arklay Forest reaching out behind it. They could even see a greenhouse, owned and operated by Umbrella, a little ways into the forest, connected to the library via a dirt path. Restrooms and janitor closets were on both sides of the first floor, situated against the outer walls just before the stairwells. The upper floor, right above the main entry hall, was where the computer lab, private study rooms, personal lockers, and the offices sat, but those could only be accessed by the librarians themselves.

Saito silently groaned once again, cursing the fact that his geometry teacher thought it was a good idea to spring a test on everyone after only two weeks back in school. He should have expected this, given the grumblings he heard from upperclassmen who had to take this exact course, but still the move blindsided him. Part of him wanted to just slack off and hope for the best, but he refused to do that. While he wasn’t a straight-A student, he certainly wanted to keep his A-B status intact. Last year he almost got a C in algebra, which was not something he wanted to repeat.

Then his concentration was broken as a group of teenage girls wandered in, talking in hushed whispers among themselves that were somehow amplified by the silence in the room.

“Did you hear? Two dozen people got hospitalized yesterday,” one of them revealed, sitting down at a table next to his and Louise’s then pulling out a textbook of her own.

“Yeah, I did. Doctors don’t know what it is,” another replied, only for the third to scoff.

“Please, we all know what it is. Cannibal disease, it’s gotta be,” she insisted, only for the third to shake her head.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Katy,” the first remarked dismissively. “First off, I’m still not convinced that’s even real. I mean, come on. A virus that turns people into cannibals and monsters? Give me a break.”

“Yeah. Next you’ll be telling me lizardmen and the Illuminati control the government,” the second joked, and the first girl laughed while Katy merely puffed up her cheeks in annoyance.

“I’m serious, you guys,” she whispered. “There’s some messed up stuff going on. Animal attacks, monster sightings in the sewers, people disappearing, mysterious hospitalizations. You can’t tell me they’re not connected.”

“What I’m saying is that you’re overreacting,” one of her companions calmly reiterated. “Those are conspiracy theories and nothing more. You heard all the doctors. There’s nothing to worry about, so let’s stop talking about this and focus on the quiz we have on Friday.”

Katy looked as though she wanted to argue further, but relented under her friends’ withering stares and joined them in studying. Saito glanced at them inquisitively for a few moments before turning back to his textbook, only to feel a slight tug on his tracksuit’s sleeve.

“Yeah?” Saito asked, and Louise calmly moved her textbook over to him where he saw it was a Biology book. “You’re looking at biology?”

“It’s interesting, and I’ve been looking into it to see if I can apply it to…personal use,” Louise admitted.

Saito immediately understood exactly what she was referring to. Louise hadn’t been lying when she admitted that she could only cast explosions while her fellow mages could manipulate other forms of magic centering around fire, water, air, and the earth. For the longest time, Louise had felt that she was doing something wrong, and had admitted as such to him a few times. Things like getting the incantation wrong, using too much or too little willpower, and more.

But, now that she was aware of at least the basics of biology, which was helped by the fact that the subject caught her interest due to the inheritance of magic among noble families, she had become terrified that perhaps her inability to properly cast magic wasn’t due to a personal failing at all but rather her genetics. That she was a failure due to coming from, as she called it, ‘bad stock,’ or even the possibility of her actually being a bastard like some of the worst of her bullies had insinuated. Already she had created an extensive family tree in her room going back generations, containing everything she could remember about her ancestors. Heath, hair color, iris color, skin tone, and of course magical affinity.

So far, Louise hadn’t been able to fully calm herself, but at the very least she was able to be mostly certain that her parents were actually her parents. The physical characteristics they shared, especially with her mother Karin, were too many to dispute. There was the possibility that her mother had an affair behind her father’s back, but Louise doubted it. Her efforts didn’t quite reveal why her magic kept messing up, though. From what she could tell, she should have either been a wind mage, like her mother and Cattleya, or an earth mage, like her father and Éléonore, yet she was neither. The only explanation she could think of was that, somewhere further back in the Vallière or Maillart bloodlines, someone was born with a similar condition to what she had, or at least had a recessive gene that went unnoticed until her birth. She didn’t know who gave the gene to her, though, and she doubted that if any Vallière or Maillart had her condition that no one would have mentioned it given her own experiences as a ‘black mark,’ as she called it.

Saito frankly thought that whole sentiment was complete bullshit, but ingrained societal emphasis on bloodlines was apparently hard to shake off. At the very least, her efforts had proven to be quite useful in helping her understand the basics of genetics, such as DNA, so that was a benefit. Louise was also beginning to think that Cattleya’s chronic health issues was also the result of inheriting genetic problems, so she also beginning to research various illnesses and treatments to try and find out what her sister had.

“But that’s not what I’m asking you about,” Louise continued, then pointed to an image of a bumpy sphere. “I can’t understand what a…virus is. Can you explain it to me?”

“Uh, sure,” Saito said, then added while scratching the back of his head, “I’m no expert or anything, but I can try.”

“Thank you,” Louise replied, then scooted over to get a closer look as Saito began to explain to the best of his ability.

“So, the thing about viruses is that they’re…weird,” Saito explained as he quickly read through the page to jog his memory. “You know about single-cell organisms, right?”

“Those are the really, really tiny things that cover everything and spread disease, right?” Louise asked, and Saito nodded while twisting his palm back and forth.

“Yes, but they’re more than that,” Saito clarified. “The human body has tons of ‘em, with each of those cells being considered a living thing. Several different types, actually. Blood cells, skin cells, nerves, and more, all of whom serve different purposes and work together to form one multicellular organism. Viruses are like those single-celled organisms, but at the same time they’re…not really alive.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Louise stated, and Saito nodded while shrugging.

“Hell if I know. I’m not a doctor,” Saito admitted, then went back to his rough explanation. “The thing about viruses is that they’re kind of like microscopic parasites. They attack and infect other cells, spreading disease in the process. Stuff like the flu, chicken pox, smallpox, some really nasty stuff.”

“Like the plague?” Louise asked, but to her surprise Saito shook his head.

“Kinda, but that was caused by bacteria, not a virus. Bacteria are actually alive, and can be helpful. Our stomachs are filled with them and they help us digest food,” Saito clarified.

“Ah. That’s…disturbing,” Louise admitted, idly rubbing her hands over her stomach nervously. Saito nodded sympathetically.

“Viruses, though, don’t help anybody. All they do is get people sick.” Saito frowned then ran his finger to the text, drawing Louse’s eye. “The worst thing about viruses, though, is that you can’t really cure them. Antibiotics can help get rid of bacteria, but they do nothing against viruses. All you can really do is alleviate the symptoms or, if available, use a vaccine that’ll help your body fight off the infection in the first place. That’s how we eradicated smallpox and polio, actually. Got enough people vaccinated so that the viruses couldn’t spread, and eventually they died out.”

“I still can’t believe your people managed to completely destroy a disease,” Louise declared, shaking her head. “Several of them, in fact. Not even our best water mages were able to do that, although part of me wonders if that was simply because we didn’t know viruses and bacteria even existed in the first place.”

“Well, now you know,” Saito said with a smile.

“Yes, I do.” Louise smiled back, then puffed up her chest and added, “When I get home to Tristain, I’ll be sure to share what I’ve learned. Even just these high school textbooks would jump our understanding forward by centuries.”

“I bet it would,” Saito replied, then frowned slightly and whispered. “Any idea on how you’re going to do that, though?”

Louise’s mood deflated, and she sighed. “No, not yet. I’ve been scouring books on history and magic, though, and I’m convinced that I’m not the first thing to arrive on Earth.”

“What do you mean?”

Louise pulled out a book detailing various monsters and myths from around the world, then opened up to a page depicting a dragon, “This is why.”

“…Louise, dragons and monsters don’t exist,” Saito flatly stated. “People just got confused after seeing fossilized dinosaur bones, mammoth skulls, and other large animals. Centaurs were just people on horseback.”

“Monsters typically are large animals,” Louise pointed out. “More importantly, dragons, manticores, sea serpents, centaurs and more _do_ exist on my world. Many of them have the exact same abilities that Earth’s myths depict them as having. I’m living proof that things from my world can cross over into yours, so who’s to say that, occasionally, a dragon or other magical beast didn’t arrive as well, thus giving weight to the myths?”

“…Huh. When you put it like that, I suppose it makes sense,” Saito admitted, seeing Louise’s logic. “Still, I don’t see how that’s going to help you find a way back home. Have you tried casting whatever spell that brought you here again?”

“Saito, I don’t even know how, exactly, I caused my summoning spell to bring me to whatever my familiar was supposed to be rather than the other way around, much less how I can repeat the process.”

“Oh, right,” Saito mumbled.

That was one of the things that Louise had mentioned since the two of them met. Her arrival to Raccoon City was entirely an accident, the result of an extreme miscasting of a familiar summoning spell. From what she described, a familiar was supposed to be an animal servant bound to the mage, and the spell brought the familiar to the mage directly. All of Louise’s classmates successfully cast the spell and brought a cavalcade of exotic creatures to their school, but somehow Louise’s attempt resulted in the exact opposite occurring. Saito had off-handedly called it a reverse summon after she first explained it to him, and the two felt it was the most adequate term to describe what had happened.

“Maybe you just need to complete the spell? Contract with whatever animal your familiar is supposed to be and poof, you’re back home with your new pet?” Saito suggested, but Louise shook her head.

“I don’t even know _what_ my familiar was supposed to be! I didn’t see any creature there waiting for me when I...arrived. With my luck, my stupid explosion probably scared it away before I could,” Louise admitted with a heavy sigh, “and this city is massive. I don’t even know where to start.”

“Why don’t you just cast the spell again and bring your familiar to you?” Saito suggested. Louise moved to reply, but stopped herself. She began to hum and pinch her chin, absorbed in thought, then began to shake her pointed right hand back and forth.

“That…might work,” she admitted. “But I can’t just do it right away. The last thing I want to do is accidentally send myself to yet _another_ world. No, I’m not going to do it until I feel comfortable doing so. If there’s one thing I’ve learned so far, it’s that there’s something different about my magic. Something that I need to be careful with.”

“Yeah, sounds about right,” Saito muttered while tapping his fingers against the wooden desk for a few moments. He struggled to find a way to help his friend through her predicament, then felt an idea pop into mind. Saito smiled then turned towards Louise and said, “I may have an idea on how you can practice your control.”

Louise perked up an eyebrow and looked at them, then asked, “Really? What do you have in mind?”

“Well, first we’re going to have to go to the store and pick up some raw chicken.”

“…Why do we need raw chicken?”

“Because you’re going to blow them up.”

“…You just want to see me cast more explosions, don’t you?”

“That’s beside the point.”

[~][~]


	4. Chapter 4: Oncoming Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Louise settles further into Raccoon City while, back home, her family and kingdom determines a way to come rescue her. Unbeknownst to either party, dark clouds are forming on the horizon, one that will plunge their worlds into evil.

**Familiar Evil (ZnT/Resident Evil)  
Chapter 4: Oncoming Storm **

[~][~]

_Tristain Academy of Magic_

_Kingdom of Tristain, Halkegenia_

“That’s the situation,” Colbert finished his explanation to a captive audience inside Headmaster Osmund’s office. Around him were some of the most important people in the kingdom of Tristain, including the Duke and Duchess Vallière, their eldest child Éléonore, Princess Henrietta, and the current regent of Tristain, Cardinal Mazarin. Cattleya Vallière had wanted to come as well, but her chronic illness made such a trip inadvisable. All of them were giving Professor Colbert their utmost attention, although he could tell that, if looks could kill, Duke Vallière would have done so by now.

“So you’re telling me you have no idea where my daughter is right now?” he asked, his voice low and filled with rage.

“Unfortunately, yes. All that we know is that she’s most likely alive,” Headmaster Osmund replied, and Duke Vallière shot the elderly man a glare.

“That’s not good enough!” he shouted, slamming his fist onto a wooden table.

“Pierre, calm yourself. It’s unbecoming,” Karin gently said, referring to his proper birthname rather than the affectionate nickname they used in private. The Duke looked at his wife, then after a moment sighed and hung his head.

“Do we even know how this happened?” Éléonore asked, raising an eyebrow. “I am more than aware of my sister’s…peculiarities with her magic, but even I’m hard-pressed to understand how one could reverse a familiar summoning. Either herself, or some outside actor.”

“I’ve been scouring the archives ever since it happened,” Colbert admitted. “The academy holds records stretching back thousands of years, since the time of Brimir actually. According to those records, the Founder himself theorized that such a thing was possible. That, with the proper application of magic, one could send themselves to the location of their familiar in lieu of the other way around in a reverse summon. Assuming that someone on the other side didn’t bring her to them, that’s what most likely happened. Somehow, Louise’s spell was improperly cast in just the right way, reversing it entirely and sending her to her familiar.”

“In that case, shouldn’t she be able to complete the ritual and send herself back here?” Princess Henrietta asked with a hopeful tone in her voice, but Colbert shook his head, causing her expression to fall.

“Unfortunately, while that is a possibility, I find it exceedingly unlikely. The most likely result is simply Louise marking her familiar and staying there,” he declared, causing the office to fall into a heavy silence.

“Alright,” Princess Henrietta started after a moment, her voice firm and absolute, “that leaves us with only one option, then. If Louise can’t come back to us on her own, for whatever reason, is there a way for us to get her?”

“That’s what I’ve been looking for, to little success for the most part,” Colbert admitted. “Our problem is that a reverse summon was only theoretical, so no one seriously contemplated making a spell to counteract it. If we’re to pull her back or go get her ourselves, we’re going to have to make something on our own.”

“Is it possible that we simply don’t have access to all the available information?” Cardinal Mazarin asked. “While I have no doubt that the Academy’s records are extensive, it’s unlikely that everything we need is in one location. It might be wise to reach for outside aid, if only to see if we are missing something.”

“From who, the other kingdoms?” Karin asked, raising her eyebrow. “Unfortunately, Cardinal, we’re not in a position _to_ request aid. Albion, our only ally, is currently locked in a civil war, Gallia is unlikely to help us at all, and the only way Germania would grant us aid is in exchange for something outlandish, assuming they’d feel inclined to help a Vallière.”

“I’m not referring to them, Duchess Vallière, of whom we’re in agreement,” Cardinal Mazarin replied, then shook his head. “No, I’m referring to the Church. They have the most extensive records in the entire continent, so if we’re missing something, they’re the most likely candidates to have it.”

“While that is true, at the end of the day this is Tristain’s matter, not the Church’s,” Karin pointed out. “It is our responsibility, and if the Church gets involved they will demand control over the operation. Given our focus is on _my daughter_ , I’d rather that not be the case.”

“I understand that, my Lady, and I am not blind to the Church’s excess and overreactive tendencies at times,” Cardinal Mazarin gently said. At the same time, Colbert flinched as a painful memory came up, but just as quickly as it arrived he sent it away. Only Karin and Osmund noticed the reaction, but they remained silent and focused on the Cardinal.

“All the same, however, we might not be in a position to choose,” Cardinal Mazarin continued, leaning forward in his chair while bringing his hands together. “I agree that this is Tristain’s sovereign concern, and any rescue attempt on Miss Louise should be led and conducted by Tristain. But we can only do that if we know where to start, and right now from where I sit, we don’t. It is folly to continue blindly without direction. Our concern should be solely on getting Louise to safety, not letting the sin of pride prevent us from reaching out for help when we need it most.”

The others looked at each other, having a silent conversation among themselves. After a moment, Princess Henrietta looked back at Tristain’s regent and asked, “What do you suggest we do, then?”

“Let me reach out to the papacy,” Cardinal Mazarin requested. “I can have a letter written up and sent to them by the end of the day. It’ll take at least a week to get a response, and in the meantime we can continue developments on our own end. But, if they offer to help, the resources they can bring to the table would be immeasurable.”

“And if they ask for too much?” Karin asked, and Cardinal Mazarin sighed.

“Then we’ll have to make a choice,” Cardinal Mazarin replied, then raised both of his hands. “Either we give in to their costly demands, hopefully increasing our chances of rescuing Louise, or we don’t and lower our odds of success. Hopefully that doesn’t come to pass, however.”

Once again, the office fell silent. They looked among themselves at first, then deferred to the Vallières. After a moment of quiet conversation between husband and wife, they turned their gazes towards Princess Henrietta. It was clear that they were giving her final approval on whatever option they’d pick. Given their loyalty to the royal family, their deference was only to be expected.

For Princess Henrietta, she felt as though a massive weight was suddenly thrust upon her shoulders. Depending on what she said next, the life of Louise Vallière, her friend since childhood, rested in the balance. She almost didn’t want to make the decision, to instead let someone else do it for her. But, at the same time, she knew she couldn’t do that. She might only be princess now, but soon she’d become the Queen of Tristain. Decisions like this would be hers and hers alone, and once that happened, she wouldn’t have the luxury of deferring decisions onto others. After a few moments of thought, she steeled her gaze and looked at Cardinal Mazarin, a loyal advisor to her family for as long as she could remember, then nodded.

“I trust you, Mazarin,” Henrietta declared. “If you believe the Church can help us, then I see no harm in requesting their aid. But, when you do, make it abundantly clear that this mission is to be led by Tristain, not them. They are to help, nothing more.”

“Of course, Princess,” Mazarin replied, bowing his head slightly. “I’ll get started right away.”

“Thank you,” Henrietta said, then turned towards the others. “In the meantime, I think our focus should be on researching anything the Founder theorized about this phenomenon. Notes, artifacts, anything you can find. The more we have, the better. Professor Colbert, Duke and Duchess Vallière, I assure you that you will have the complete and unyielding support of the royal family in this endeavor. You need but ask and we will provide.”

“We appreciate your aid, Princess,” Pierre Vallière replied. “We will not forget this generosity.”

“Think nothing of it,” Henrietta demurred. “Louise is my friend, and I want to see her safe and sound as well.”

“All the same, we thank you nonetheless,” Karin replied, giving the princess a bow along with the rest of her family.

Now knowing what their next steps were, the room’s inhabitants stood up. They all bowed towards Princess Henrietta once again, then set off to complete their assignments. Most went with Colbert to aid in his research while Cardinal Mazarin went to his room, where he immediately began penning a letter to the Pope detailing what had transpired as well as Henrietta’s conditions. He could only hope that they wouldn’t push too far.

Around them, the academy slowly began returning to normal, albeit one with a heightened sense of security. Students were going in and out of classes while servants cleaned up after them, and conversations echoed across the academy halls. As everyone expected, most of it was focused entirely on what happened to Louise, with some thinking that she was dead while most simply thought she ran away. Only a few openly wondered along the same lines of thought as their teachers, while an even smaller number questioned why they were putting in so much effort in the first place to rescue the Zero. Thankfully, they were quickly shot down by everyone else.

Some, however, had managed to obtain a more complete picture of what was going on.

“You honestly think that’s what happened, Tabitha?” Kirche asked as she ate in the cafeteria hall with her best friend. Tabitha nodded while nibbling on a sandwich, then downed it with a sip of wine.

“I do,” Tabitha replied. “Some of the teachers were talking about it when they thought I wasn’t listening.”

“Wow,” Kirche mumbled. “A reverse summon, huh? Well, gotta hand it to Louise at the very least. Only she would mess up a spell everyone’s supposed to be able to cast in such a spectacular fashion.”

“You don’t sound concerned,” Tabitha noted, but her voice remained calm even as Kirche shook her head.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m worried about her, but I’m just stating facts,” she pointed out. “To be honest, I expected her to fail, just not like that.”

“What’s this, a Zerbst concerned for a Vallière?” Guiche de Gramont asked as he sat nearby on a separate table with his fiancée Montmorency Margarita la Fère de Montmorency, clearly listening in. “Well, now I know I’ve seen everything.”

“You mean to say you’re not?”

“Of course I am,” Guiche countered, waving a rose around in a lazy circle above his head. “I may not like the girl, she’s far too high strung and unappealing for my tastes, but assuming your friend is correct, her predicament is worrying. Who knows what might’ve happened to her?”

“I bet she just couldn’t take it anymore and finally ran away,” Montmorency plainly stated, then after a moment frowned. “But, if she really did reverse-summon herself, I can’t imagine something more terrifying.”

Kirche looked at her classmates, then laughed and shook her head. She then declared, “Honestly, I think she’s fine. If there’s one thing I know about Louise, it’s that she’s stubborn as a mule. She’s not going to let something like summoning herself to Founder knows where get her down. You’ll see. They’re going to get her back here and everything will go back to normal, almost like it never happened in the first place.”

Her fellow classmates looked at her, then nodded and returned to their lunch. Kirche smiled, then turned back to Tabitha. As she expected, the blue-haired girl looked as impassive as ever, yet behind it Kirche saw something else. Something that told her that Tabitha was more concerned than she was willing to let on. If she was being honest with herself, so was Kirche. There was a high chance that something went horribly wrong when Louise reversed the summoning spell, and for all they knew, she died almost instantly. Or maybe she did live through it, only for something to happen later. Kirche didn’t know what, exactly, happened to Louise, but she did know there was no sense in freaking out about it. Right now, there wasn’t anything she could do, so she’d leave it to her teachers and focus on more important matters. Like her classes, and whichever boy she was going to have over for the night.

Her thoughts were disturbed as they heard a low rumble off in the distance, and everyone turned to see large storm clouds gathering on the horizon.

~

_September 5 th, 1998 9:30 AM_

_Hiraga Family Apartment_

_Raccoon City, Arklay County, United States of America_

Louise breathed in and out slowly, holding her wand up close to her nose. In front of her, laid out in a line on a piece of wood, were three raw chickens she was using as targets. Behind her, sitting on the cooler they had stored the chicken in, was Saito. He was holding a light grey Sony Hi8 Handycam up to his right eye, the other closed so that he could focus through the lens.

“Saito, why are you…recording this?” Louise asked, not turning around so that she could instead focus on what was in front of her. “If your parents, or anyone else, finds that cassette they’ll know exactly what we’re doing.”

“A few reasons,” Saito admitted with a slight shrug, then held up his free hand and began to count. “One, by recording this for posterity, we won’t forget anything. We can blow stuff up, watch what we did later, and figure out what to do next. Two, no one’s going to look at this. My parents respect my privacy, and if I don’t let them look at it, they won’t.”

“Your parents have a lot more trust than mine,” Louise dryly noted, then looked behind her shoulder with a narrow gaze. “That’s not why you’re doing this. You just want to play with it.”

“Come on, it’s so cool! It’s got night vision and everything!” Saito playfully whined, causing Louise to groan. “I hardly ever get a chance to use this thing. Besides, I’m being serious. This will help us!”

Louise looked at Saito, who smiled and gave her a thumbs up. She had to admit, the concept of recording her tests to view later was intriguing, and should allow her to spot mistakes she might have otherwise missed. But, at the same time, if for whatever reason someone, either Saito’s parents or a different person entirely, decided to take a glimpse at what was recorded the secret they’d been keeping thus far would be out in the open. That wasn’t something they wanted, but the more she thought about it, recording her tests wasn’t any more dangerous than practicing on the roof like they were doing. After a few moments of thought, she sighed and nodded before turning back to the targets.

“Fine, go ahead,” Louise affirmed, and Saito let out a short cheer before refocusing the camera on her.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Saito announced, giving her an encouraging thumbs up.

Louise nodded, then closed her eyes and took a deep breath in order to help her concentrate. Slowly, she opened her eyes and focused on the middle target, then shot her wand forward and aimed at it.

“Gust!” Louise shouted as she cast the weakest wind spell she could think of.

Had her magic worked properly, a gust of wind would have emerged to push the chicken away. Instead, much as she both expected and dreaded, the chicken merely exploded. Chunks of raw meat, fat, sinew and bone flew out several feet in all directions, forcing Louise to flinch and shield herself from the debris. The other two chickens were sent flying off in different directions, one spattering against an AC unit on the roof while another flew off the edge and fell to the alley below. The wooden plank, propped up from the ground on a few cinder blocks, was broken in two from where the explosion hit. Luckily, aside from a faint scorch mark on the ground that looked more surface level than anything, there was no real property damage.

“…Huh,” Saito started as he and Louise stared numbly at the results of their first test. “You know what, maybe testing out explosions on the roof of an apartment complex _isn’t_ the best idea.”

“You think?!” Louise shouted, both from indignation and embarrassment. Her cheeks were flushed bright red as she glared at a sheepish Saito, who was rubbing the back of his head awkwardly.

Realizing that their tests for now were thoroughly done, Saito stopped his recording and helped Louise to pick up after their mess. Using a thick trash bag they had brought up for this very purpose, as well as a rag and water, they gathered the remains of their stand and the chicken and tossed them in. Once they were done with the roof, they descended the fire escape down to the alley, where they picked up the last chicken, threw it away as well, then tied up the bag to throw into a nearby dumpster. Looking around, it seemed that no one was disturbed by what they were doing as the noise was drowned out by the morning traffic, but it was obvious that was due to luck. Neither of them had any intentions of stopping anytime soon, as it was far too important to do so, but it was clear that they needed a different venue.

As they walked back to the front of the apartment building, Louise looked down the road they took to get to the library, then suggested, “Perhaps the Arklay Forest behind the library?”

Saito paused to look down the street. He tapped his chin in thought, then said, “That…might work. Depending on how far we go, it’s isolated so no one should see us. There’s no risk of property damage, and if anyone actually hears what we’re doing they’ll just think we’re kids playing with firecrackers.”

“Is that illegal?” Louise asked, raising an eyebrow. The last thing she wanted to do was to accidentally break a law, but to her relief, Saito shook his head.

“Only if there’s a citywide ordinance, and those are only issued when conditions are dry enough so that the use of fireworks carries real risk of starting a fire,” Saito revealed. “At the moment, there’s been enough rain lately so that’s not an issue, so we should be good.”

As though to punctuate his point, they heard the rumblings of thunder off in the distance. The meteorologist had said on the news before they set out that there was a high chance of rain that day. It was the primary reason why they didn’t go out into the forest in the first place. The last thing they wanted was to get caught out in the middle of the woods when a storm rolled in.

“That makes sense,” Louise replied, then nodded while pounding her fist into her palm. “Besides, I like going to the library anyway, so we can knock off two birds with one stone. We go to the library for a bit, go out and do some tests, then head back home.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Saito replied, then the two teenagers walked up the short flight of stairs and into the apartment building.

~

_September 6 th, 1998 2:30 PM_

Louise barely understood what was going on as she watched Saito and his father work on their Camry. She got the basics: the starter was acting up, so Mr. Hiraga decided to fix it on his own. That was five hours ago, and he was having no luck thus far.

“Seriously Dad, I think we should take this to a mechanic,” Saito pointed out, standing back while holding his hands to his hips. His body was drenched in sweat, his skin glistening under the sunlight that filtered in through the open spaces of the parking garage walls. Wiping away the sweat on his brow, inadvertently showing off bits of his lean physique, he picked up a nearby water bottle and took a few gulps of the nourishing liquid, then sighed in relief before spinning the cap back on.

For brief moments at a time, Louise couldn’t help but stare at him, a primal part of herself telling her to do so, but every time she forced herself to look away, grateful that Saito wasn’t seeing the blush on her face.

“Nonsense, Saito,” Mr. Hiraga said, looked up at his son with a smile on his face. Above his head was the propped up hood of the car, his hands deep within the engine block. “Your old man’s got this.”

“No, no you don’t,” Saito countered, crossing his arms and giving his father a disbelieving look. “That was obvious four hours ago, you’re just too stubborn to admit it.”

“I’m hurt, truly,” Mr. Hiraga joked, giving his soon a faux look of dismay. Saito tried to maintain his composure, but after a moment lost the battle and chuckled slightly. Mr. Hiraga smiled victoriously, then returned to his work. “Seriously, it’s just the starter. I’m more than capable of fixing this on my own. There’s no need to pay a mechanic to do this when I can do it for free.”

Saito stared flatly at his father, then mumbled under his breath, “Right _…_ ”

Louise looked back and forth between the father and son, then couldn’t stop herself as she let out a small chuckle. Immediately the two men turned their attention towards her, and Louise stood ramrod straight due to embarrassment.

“Ah, let’s ask Louise,” Mr. Hiraga suggested, then pointed at her while continuing to lean over the car’s engine. “Louise, do you think I can do this for free, or should I pay a mechanic instead?”

Saito tilted his head and gave her a pleading look, while Mr. Hiraga smiled warmly. Once again Louise looked back and forth between them, then gulped and answered, “Well, I don’t know the first thing about engines, so if you say that fixing a starter is easy, then I believe you.”

“Aha! See, Saito! She believes I can do it!” Mr. Hiraga cheered, only for Saito to hold up a finger.

“Wait for it,” he said, knowing Louise wasn’t done.

“But,” she continued, proving Saito right, “it’s probably best to hire someone who knows what they’re doing. If I own a house and it needs repair, I’d rather hire an experienced carpenter whose trade is working with wood rather than do it myself and mess something up.”

“Gagh!” Mr. Hiraga grunted in shock, causing Saito to laugh victoriously. The middle-aged Japanese man grumbled and frowned towards his son, then looked back at Louise and smirked.

“What?” Louise asked, not knowing what Mr. Hiraga was thinking, only for the man to smile and shake his head.

“Oh, nothing,” he replied as he got up from the car and cleaned his greasy hands with a rag. “Just that it’s funny how well Saito already knows you. None of the other girls ever got this far.”

“Dad!!” Saito screamed, his face flushing in embarrassment while Louise stared at Mr. Hiraga incredulously. Then she slowly turned her head and lightly glared at Saito, clenching her fist.

“What _other_ girls?” she asked, her voice tense. Saito frantically attempted to wave her off, only for his father to laugh and continue.

“Ever since elementary school, Saito’s been pulling girls to him like flies to honey!” Mr. Hiraga teasingly revealed. “Then they’d realize how oblivious he is and move on after a few weeks. You’re the first one he’s actually paid attention to, Louise.”

“Really?” Louise asked, tilting her head and giving Saito a menacing glare. To the panicking boy, it was as though a dark aura had emerged around her, one that threatened to suck him in like a black hole and promised nothing but pain.

“It’s not like…! I’m not…! Gagh!” Saito grunted, then turned around. “I’m going to get us some food!”

With that, he fast walked away, his father happily waving him off while Louise continued to glare holes into the back of his head. Once he was out of sight, Saito’s father openly laughed and shook his head, then returned to working on the car.

“That ought to get him to drop this whole ‘mechanic’ business for a while,” he revealed, fiddling with some tools as he continued to work on the engine.

Louise looked back at Mr. Hiraga and incredulously asked, “You mean to say you embarrassed your son just to win an argument?”

“Yes,” Mr. Hiraga replied. Louise stared flatly at him for a moment, then shook her head and sighed.

“I don’t know how to feel about that,” she admitted, and Mr. Hiraga shrugged.

“Well, embarrassing your son in front of girls is a father’s duty,” he admitted with a hint of pride in his voice. Louise stared flatly at him, idly wondering if her own father would have done that to her had she been a boy instead of a girl, before shaking those thoughts away. She then huffed and leaned against a concrete column and crossed her arms, looking away towards the apartment.

“And those…other girls? What about them?” Louise asked, a hint of jealousy in her voice, but Mr. Hiraga merely laughed.

“Oh, don’t worry about it, Louise! They were nothing serious,” he revealed. “Just my son being nice to them, that’s all. Girls tend to like that in a guy.”

“Ah, that’s…good,” Louise muttered, her cheeks blushing slightly before she shook her head and crossed her arms. With a huff, she added, “Still, that stupid dog better not think I’m like them…”

Mr. Hiraga smiled knowingly at Louise, then returned to working on the car. As he did, Louise remained where she stood against the pillar, watching him from the corner of her eyes. She didn’t quite know what, exactly, he was doing, but it fascinated her, nonetheless. While Mr. Hiraga certainly wasn’t an expect at vehicles, he at least knew enough to make progress. Louise honestly got the feeling that, if he and Professor Colbert knew each other, they’d become friends.

“Oh, by the way, Louise?” Mr. Hiraga said, his face buried deep in the engine compartment.

“Yes?” Louise asked, turning her head to look at him completely.

“Next time you and Saito decide play with firecrackers, please be conscious of our neighbors? A few of them were complaining about some kids messing around on the roof yesterday,” he revealed. Louise stared at him for a moment, blinking a few times as she comprehended what he just said, then her face filled red in embarrassment.

“…Oh,” she quietly said, looking down at her feet. “Don’t worry, Mr. Hiraga. We, uh, already figured that out.”

“I thought as such, and don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. We’ve all been young and stupid at one time or another. So long as you guys are being safe, I’m fine with it,” Mr. Hiraga admitted, then glanced up at her. “Also, Sakura and I told you already, Louise. You don’t need to keep calling us ‘Mr. and Mrs. Hiraga.’ Please, call me Satoshi.”

“Yes, Mr.—” Louise began, only to stop herself as Mr. Hiraga shot her a look, then corrected herself, “Okay, Satoshi.”

Satoshi Hiraga smiled and nodded, then returned to working on the car. Several minutes passed by, with Louise watching over him in fascination, then to her surprise he got up from the engine, went to the side of the car, and sat in the driver’s seat.

“Okay, let’s see if this works,” he muttered, then turned the ignition. The engine turned over a few times, and at first she was worried that it wouldn’t work. Then, after a few moments, the engine roared to life, and she smiled as Mr. Hiraga pumped his fist in victory.

“Aha! I knew I could do it!” he cheered, and Louise’s smile grew.

~

_September 9 th, 1998 11:30 AM_

_Spencer Memorial Hospital_

_Raccoon City, Arklay County, United States of America_

“Breathe in and out slowly,” Dr. Moreau said as he held a stethoscope to Louise’s back. The metal felt cold to the girl’s skin, more of an irritation rather than any real discomfort, and after a moment she complied. The air went in and out of her lungs calmly, and the doctor listened in as closely as he could before he moved away, taking the stethoscope with him.

“Everything sounds normal,” he revealed, then smiled warmly. “Looks like you’re not having any issues with the change in weather.”

“Joy,” Louise dryly replied, her eyes narrowed suspiciously towards Dr. Moreau. He took it in stride, having grown used to Louise’s attitude towards him, then held up a small lens with an attached light and a wooden stick.

“Open and say ‘ahh,’” he instructed.

Louise opened her mouth but refused to say anything, remaining quiet and stern while allowing the doctor to pull her tongue down and out of the way. He then looked through his lens and turned on the light in order to see better into her mouth and the back of her throat. Moreau hummed to himself, looking over each and every inch, then nodded in satisfaction. Moving the lens away, he took a cotton swab and rubbed it against the inside of Louise’s cheek, an uncomfortable sensation that irked her to no end. She had no choice but to comply, however, as this was part of her general check-up procedures. At the very least, it would be over soon.

Once he was finished, Dr. Moreau backed away and removed the wooden stick from Louise’s tongue. She smacked her lips, still feeling the wood’s odd texture and bitter aftertaste on her taste buds, then proceeded to lick the inside of her mouth in an effort to remove the weird dryness left behind by the cotton swab. At the same time, Dr. Moreau tossed the stick into a biohazardous waste receptacle then stored the swab in a container.

“Even after the fifth time, that still feels uncomfortable. At least it’s better than sticking it up my nose,” Louise admitted, now rubbing the outside of her cheek where the swab had rubbed.

“Yes, it can be uncomfortable for some,” Dr. Moreau replied as he prepared the next stage of her clinical tests, a few clear vials with different-colored caps and anticoagulant at the bottom.

Louise had done some outside research on hematology tests during her time at the library, but the only thing she learned was that the different colors meant the blood was being treated differently for different tests. Purple and yellow were the most common, along with pink and grey. She was certain that the library had more detailed information available somewhere, but she hadn’t been able to find it yet. Regardless, she held out her arm to allow the doctor easier access. Louise didn’t particularly like having a needle stuck into her arm which sucked out her lifeblood (her instincts screamed at her to resist every time), but the sooner it was over with, the sooner she could leave.

Dr. Moreau tied a rubber band around her arm and gave her a ball to squeeze, constricting the blood flow enough so that a vein was more easily located. After a few seconds of poking the inside of her elbow with his finger, Dr. Moreau found the vein and cleaned the area with alcohol. He then gently placed the tip of the syringe against her skin, and Louise looked away just as he gently pressed in. A short, stinging pain was felt as the needle punctured through, but soon it went away. As the band was removed and Louise was allowed to unclench her hand, she took a glance to see blood be sucked out into one of the vials. Once it was filled, another was placed while the syringe remained in her arm, and the process was repeated until all of the vials were filled. Only then did Dr. Moreau remove the needle, promptly covering the now-bleeding entry hole with a patch of cotton and a wrapped bandage around her arm.

“Alright, we are done,” Dr. Moreau announced, backing away as he placed the vials into a specialized holder. Louise let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. No matter how many times it happened, she doubted she’d ever get used to having her blood taken, and she hoped she wouldn’t have to.

“That’s good,” Louise said as she stood up off the chair and slipped her red jacket back on. Looking at the blood vials from the corner of her eye, she then asked, “Dr. Moreau, may I ask what exactly you’re doing with my blood?”

“Simple blood work, really,” he answered, not looking at her as he inverted the vials a few times each. “Biochemistry, endocrinology, microbiology, clotting, transfusion, stuff like that. Tests that everyone goes through. Since you had a complete lack of records, though, we had to do them from scratch all at once. We’ve already learned quite a bit, actually.”

“Such as?”

“Such as your blood type,” Dr. Moreau revealed. “You are aware of what blood types are, correct?”

“The basics, yes,” Louise answered while crossing her arms. If she was being honest with herself, the concept of people having different types of blood, all determined by the presence or absence of specific antigens to trigger immune responses, was fascinating her. Louise would have never imagined that being a thing, but she had to remain focused.

“Well, yours is O negative,” Dr. Moreau clarified, “which is quite fortunate as it means you are a universal donor. If someone needs a blood transfusion, yours can be used with little risk of rejection.”

“That’s…good to know,” Louise admitted. She knew that Dr. Moreau was heavily simplifying things for her, but she was fine with that. She then asked, “Am I correct in assuming you do these tests here at the hospital?”

“Some of them, yes,” Dr. Moreau answered, “but others require more complex equipment that we, unfortunately, don’t have. As such, we’re forced to send them offsite.”

Louise stared at the doctor for a moment, then shrugged. She supposed the explanation made sense, yet at the same time felt that the look on Dr. Moreau’s face seemed out of place. For some reason, he looked perplexed, almost as though he wasn’t given the full picture. Given Louise’s suspicions and distrust towards the Umbrella Corporation, she supposed that might very well be the case. For as much as Louise was uncomfortable being in the hospital longer than she needed to be, she got the sense that Dr. Moreau was genuinely a good man who was trying to do his best for his patients, of which she was included. Good men like him weren’t told everything by their superiors when they wanted something hidden, yet clearly as he shrugged and continued putting the vials away, he wasn’t all too questioning.

Once he was done prepping the blood samples, Dr. Moreau left the office and took the vials with him. Apparently, he was getting them ready for transport to wherever it was that they were supposed to go, most likely another hospital or lab inside the city. Louise was left alone to stew in her thoughts, idly kicking her feet in the air as she waited for permission to leave. Finally, after a few minutes of waiting, a nurse walked in and told Louise she was free to go, any and all costs associated with her visit being taken care of by the Umbrella Corporation.

She couldn’t get out of there fast enough, almost jogging through the halls to the waiting room where Sakura Hiraga waited for her. Now that her doctor’s appointment was done, Louise and her temporary caretaker left the hospital towards their car. Only once they were outside of the parking lot and out into the street did she let herself feel relaxed. Yet, at the same time, she couldn’t completely. She felt that an ever-present eye was watching her at all times, even when she was at the sanctity of her-, of the Hiraga’s home.

But, what concerned her the most, was what she saw on the way out of the hospital. The number of people in the waiting room was far larger than she anticipated, as well as the number of people in ICU. They weren’t anywhere near capacity yet, but clearly they were on their way, and if Spencer Memorial was having this problem, then there was no telling how the other, generally smaller hospitals and clinics were doing.

Louise was lucky in that she never had to live through an outbreak of plague, but she was all too well-aware of how dangerous they could be. Tales of entire villages or noble families dying to disease were well-known to everyone, from the lowliest commoner to the highest of nobility. Worryingly, she also got the sense that Saito’s people felt like they had somehow surpassed the danger of disease, that the miracles of their advanced medicine made them immune. She prayed to the Founder that they were right, but at the same time feared that they were about to be proven wrong.

~

_Tristain Academy of Magic_

_Kingdom of Tristain, Halkegenia_

Éléonore Albertine le Blanc de la Blois de la Vallière leaned over her desk, running her finger across the ancient text written into the scroll. An oil lamp cast a flickering, orange glow across the room, providing the only source of light in the otherwise dark and cold chamber. Any moonlight that would have shone through the window was obscured by thick clouds, with the occasional flash of lightning and roar of thunder immediately afterwards. She didn’t pay attention to the weather, however, and instead focused purely on the task at hand.

Unfortunately, researching into what happened to Louise, and more importantly how to rescue her, was proving harder than initially hoped. The entire process was exceedingly difficult. It was only thanks to her tenure as the best researcher of the Royal Magic Research Institute that she was able to begin translating, but that could only go so far. Much of the text was faded and parts of the scroll were even missing, torn out either accidentally or on purpose. The only reason why it remained intact was thanks to the strong square-class enchantments placed upon it millennia ago to keep it preserved. Most frustratingly, hardly any of the records had relevant information at all. This wasn’t even the first scroll she had looked through, only the latest in a long-line of documents that she had lost count of.

“Uggh,” she groaned, leaning back and taking off her glasses in order to rub her tired eyes.

Looking at the parchment again, she frowned. Not just at the fact that translating the damn thing was proving to be so difficult, but at the entire situation in general. Louise, her youngest sister by eleven years, completely disappearing out of the blue due to a spell gone horribly wrong. It was a nightmarish situation, one that made Cattleya faint upon hearing it. The only thing Éléonore managed to ascertain thus far was that it was most likely a result of something Louise did on her end, but she couldn’t find anything to suggest what that thing exactly was. If they did, they might have been able to find a way to replicate it, or preferably bring her back themselves. Unfortunately, that avenue was proving exceedingly unlikely.

Whatever it was that happened, it appeared that it was unique to Louise. Part of Éléonore didn’t feel all that surprised. Despite her inability to properly cast magic, Louise’s spells were still magic. A commoner couldn’t say a word and cause something to explode on their own, after all. Prior to this event, Éléonore and everyone else simply thought that Louise just wasn’t doing the spells correctly, or worse, there was something inherently wrong with her that would never be overcome.

But now that belief was being called into question. Magical failures don’t just result in someone being whisked away, especially for someone who failed at magic so frequently like Louise. An explosion, sure, but not a reverse-summon.

“What happened to you, Louise?” Éléonore muttered under her breath as she took one last look at the scroll.

It had been detailing the Founder’s theories about reverse-summons, a line of thought carried on by his students, the founders of the four Brimiric Kingdoms of Romalia, Gallia, Albion, and Tristain. They theorized that only a certain type of mage could perform a reverse-summon, but what type was lost to time. There were frequent mentions of Brimir potentially being able to do one, which raised her eyebrow considerably. If anyone were capable of intentionally performing a reverse-summon, Brimir would be the most likely candidate. As the Founder of Halkegenia’s magical and political system, as well as the only Void mage in history, he was capable of many great things. Louise, unfortunately, wasn’t anywhere near his level.

Yet, the frequent mentions of him in relation to the spell caused her mind to wander in an almost heretical direction, which she forced herself to avert from each time it came up. It was impossible, she reminded herself. Louise was merely a failure of a mage, one who had once again gotten herself into a situation that she needed her older sister to bail her out from. Which she would do without question. As much as Louise and her stubbornness got on Éléonore’s nerves, she was still her sister.

Realizing that she wasn’t getting anywhere tonight, and letting out another yawn, Éléonore neatly rolled up the scroll and reinserted it back into its holder. Stacking it and the other documents under her arm, she began to put back them back into their proper places. Any researcher worth their salt understood the value of proper record keeping, and that included putting things back where they belonged. She’d be remiss to forget that now, despite how personal and important the subject was to her.

As she was finishing up, however, she noticed another flicker of light coming from the back of the room. Using her lantern to guide her way, she walked over to see that it was Professor Colbert. He was in a similar position as she had been, hunched over an ancient book and ignoring everything else. But, at the same time, the amount of stress he was under was easily visible. His five o’clock shadow had grown into a short, patchy beard, his eyes were red and bloodshot, and the smell radiating off his body was pungent enough to prevent Éléonore from getting too close lest she openly gag.

Part of her blamed him for what happened. He was Louise’s teacher, after all, and allowed her to have multiple attempts at summoning her familiar. Had he simply done his job as he was supposed to and failed Louise then sent her home, none of this might have happened. But, at the same time, she knew it wasn’t his fault, and now he was doing everything in his power, and more, to bring her back safely. Besides, she knew that for as much as she blamed him, he himself did so exponentially more. Jean Colbert looked as though he was trying to bear the weight of the world upon his shoulders, and she doubted he’d be able to remain standing for long.

“It’s getting late, Professor,” Éléonore called out, causing Colbert to jump slightly in his seat and turn around. When he saw that it was her, he let out a sigh and hung his head.

“Ah, Ms. Vallière. My apologies, I didn’t hear you come over,” he admitted, and Éléonore nodded.

“Indeed, you appeared to be quite…engrossed,” she remarked, and leaned over to try and get a better look at the book in question. To her surprise, she saw that it was about Brimir, the opened page discussing one of his familiars.

“The Gandálfr?” Éléonore asked. Colbert flinched slightly, then nodded and turned towards it.

“Yes,” he slowly replied, gently grabbing both ends of the book with his hands. “One of the four familiars of Brimir. ‘The Left Hand of God,’ translated directly. According to Church doctrine, the Gandálfr was the master of any weapon, meant to serve as Brimir’s bodyguard while he cast his spells.”

“I am aware of what the Gandálfr is and what it can supposedly do,” Éléonore reminded him, frowning slightly. “What I am not aware of is how this pertains to Louise.”

“Ah, yes. Um,” Colbert started, his voice mumbled and unsure. Despite herself, Éléonore felt her heartbeat quicken, feeling as though she knew where his line of thought was going.

“Well,” he continued, his voice lowering, “I was looking through some ancient texts about elemental affinities, and it led me in this direction.”

“I see,” Éléonore replied, her voice stiff while at the same time lowering. “Are you suggesting that Louise’s reverse-summon might have been the result of using the wrong affinity?”

Colbert slowly nodded, then he added, “Or the right one, perhaps.”

The two mages stared at each other, the world seemingly grinding to a halt. Both of them knew exactly what Colbert was referring to, but neither dared speak it out loud. To do so was heresy of the highest magnitude, and it was clear that both of them wanted desperately to dismiss it out of hand. But, at the same time, they couldn’t. Not entirely, at least.

“Have you…discussed this with anyone else?” Éléonore asked, and Colbert nodded.

“Your parents, Headmaster Osmund, Princess Henrietta, and Cardinal Mazarin,” Colbert admitted. “No one else. I wasn’t…going to say anything definitive until I was certain. Their reaction was the same as yours.”

“Are you?” she asked, and Colbert grew quiet. After a moment, he hung his head and sighed.

“Without seeing her familiar,” he said, “no. But, if it is what I think it may very well be…”

His voice trailed off, but Éléonore understood what he was implying all the same.

“…I see,” Éléonore tersely stated, and once again the room fell into silence. Neither of them moved a muscle or said a word, not knowing what else to do.

Both knew it was merely a suspicion, one that their very beings were screaming at them was impossible, but if it was correct it would explain so much. Why all of Louise’s spells exploded no matter which affinity she used, why the reverse-summon happened, and more. Neither wanted to believe it, though, not just for their sakes but for Louise’s. If their suspicions were true, then Louise’s life was in yet another type of danger.

They were broken out of their thoughts when they heard a knock on the door. Startled, they jumped up slightly, and Professor Colbert frantically closed the book and covered it with a pile of scrolls before turning around to face the entryway.

“Come in,” he spoke loudly, betraying no hint as to the contents of their clandestine conversation. The knob turned, and to their surprise and relief saw Siesta holding it open.

“Professor, Lady Vallière,” she announced, “you’re requested up at the Headmaster’s office. It’s quite urgent.”

Both Éléonore and Colbert looked at each other in surprise, then nodded affirmatively at the young maid. The two quickly finished putting away the documents then swiftly walked through the hallways of the academy towards the central tower. Rising through the stairs, they saw that everyone was already waiting. Éléonore’s parents, Headmaster Osmund, Princess Henrietta, Cardinal Mazarin, and to their surprise a new person entirely. He was a young boy that looked just over a year older than Louise, with wild blond hair and heterochromic eyes, one red, the other blue. Looking into them was almost like looking at the two moons which had the same color scheme. He wore a blue cloak over a white and gold-trimmed coat and black pants, with a black belt tightly wrapped around his waist. Over both of his hands were a pair of white gloves, and he was adjusting them slightly as he turned to face them.

“Ah, Professor Colbert, Lady Vallière. So happy you could join us,” he cheerfully announced, then gave a flourishing bow. “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Julio Chesaré. I am a knight and priest of the Holy Empire of Romalia here on behalf of Pope Vittorio.”

“The Pope?” Éléonore repeated, and Julio smiled while nodding.

“Indeed. He received Cardinal Mazarin’s letter a few days ago and has decided to lend Tristain his support,” he announced, surprising everyone present.

“That is…mighty generous,” Headmaster Osmund admitted while stroking his beard. “I have to admit, I did not believe the Church would lend its hand, much less the Pope’s. Or this quickly, for that matter.”

“Once the situation was explained to him, His Holiness was quite moved,” Julio admitted while bringing his hand to his chest. “Especially given the circumstances. The daughter of a duke and duchess disappearing during a summoning gone wrong would only lead to instability, and given the situation in Albion, that isn’t something anyone wants.”

Colbert, Osmund, and the Vallières glanced at each other before looking back at Julio. Karin couldn’t help but narrow her eyes suspiciously, feeling as though he wasn’t telling them everything. Princess Henrietta, meanwhile, smiled and sighed in relief, taking the young boy at his word.

“Pope Vittorio has my eternal gratitude for lending his assistance,” she admitted. “I’ll be sure to write him a letter personally to express my thanks.”

“There’s no need for that,” Julio explained, causing everyone to look at him in surprise. Before anyone could ask why, he added, “His Holiness will be arriving in a few days to lend his personal assistance.”

“The Pope is coming _here_?” Headmaster Osmund incredulously asked, his eyes widening. He was so surprised, his hand froze in place while it was stroking his massive beard. As Julio nodded with a smile on his face, everyone else’s jaws slacked in disbelief.

“He is, yes,” Julio enthusiastically confirmed, causing everyone to look at each other in concern. Chuckling to himself, Julio continued, “Of course, his personal guard and escort will be joining him, but I trust that won’t be a concern?”

“Of…of course not,” Henrietta confirmed after taking a deep gulp. As everyone looked at her, she adjusted herself and stared right at Julio Chesaré then asked, “While we are honored by the visit, and rest assured that Tristain will marshal our forces to ensure his protection, may I ask why the Pope felt his personal presence was required? This is quite sudden, and had we more time to prepare, we could have assembled a greater response.”

“His Holiness understands your concern,” Julio smiled, raising his hand placatingly. “Admittedly, this is unexpected, but then again so was, as you succinctly called it, a reverse-summon. Decisions had to be made quickly and decisively.”

“That doesn’t explain why the Pope decided to come here,” Pierre Vallière reiterated. “May I ask why?”

Julio looked at the Duke, his different-colored eyes studying the older man, then he admitted, “As you might have already guessed, Louise’s situation is unique. Both with her magic, and her reverse-summoning. As such, there’s hardly any records on it, however after we received your letter the Pope had all his priests scour the archives for anything we could use. While the Academy’s archives are, indeed, impressive, the Church’s are much more extensive and well-preserved. As such, we were able to find a ritual that would allow us to follow in her footsteps, opening a doorway from here to wherever it was she went.”

The others looked at each other, then Colbert looked back at Julio and asked, “Couldn’t you, then, deliver us the ritual for us to perform?”

“Unfortunately, it’s not that simple,” Julio sadly replied, shaking his head. “Only a scant few are able to cast this spell, otherwise it won’t work at all. The only people we know are capable of casting it successfully are the Pope himself…and Louise.”

The sound in the office disappeared, and it became so quiet that one could hear a pin being dropped. Tension rose as everyone stared incredulously at Julio, knowing exactly what he was implying and confirming. After all, they had begun to suspect it themselves over the past few days.

“Am I correct in assuming that declaration comes from the Pope himself?” Cardinal Mazarin asked, his voice low and almost threatening, and Julio turned to him before nodding.

“Yes, you are. I suppose you’ve also had your suspicions by now, and we aren’t entirely certain either, but the odds are likely,” Julio confirmed. “As you can imagine, getting her back is imperative for more reasons than I can discuss here.”

That was the understatement of the millennia, and everyone took a deep gulp. Only Karin and Pierre seemed to keep their composure, while the others were visibly nervous. Colbert looked outright panicked while simultaneously chastising himself from missing the signs, but before he could do so for very long, Julio stopped him.

“You mustn’t blame yourself,” the priest advised. “All we can do now is prepare for what needs to come. For one, while His Holiness knows the spell and can send a rescue party to retrieve Louise, for understandable reasons he cannot come with you. Instead, Louise will have to open the doorway back to the academy herself.”

“How can she do that without knowing the spell?” Éléonore asked, finding the entire situation almost too hard to believe.

“To do that, we’ll require two items from our lovely princess here,” Julio replied as he turned to smile at Princess Henrietta. The young girl blushed slightly at the obvious flirtation while Cardinal Mazarin and the others openly frowned, but Julio quickly shifted to a more serious demeanor. He then asked, “Princess, do you happen to have the Water Ruby and the Founder’s Prayer Book on you?”

“I have the Water Ruby on me at all times,” Henrietta confirmed, holding up the blue gemstone ring neatly placed along her finger. “As for the prayer book, it’s currently at the palace in Tristainia for safekeeping. But it’s completely blank, so I don’t see how it’ll be of any help.”

“A wise choice, given its importance,” Julio admitted, then sighed. “Unfortunately, we’re going to need it here. If our suspicions are correct, when Louise holds the Water Ruby up to the Founder’s Prayer Book, the text held within will reveal itself, revealing Brimir’s personally crafted spells and notes. She can use that to learn the spell needed to return to Tristain.”

“I’ll have it fetched right away,” Henrietta immediately confirmed, steeling her resolve. Julio nodded and smiled back at her, then turned towards the others.

“Aside from those two items, we have traced an object of great importance to Tristainia. An ancient sword that should be able to help guide us to Louise once we arrive,” Julio added. “If we find that sword, we can use it like a dowsing rod to find her.”

“That would certainly make things easier,” Éléonore admitted while rubbing her chin. “Do you know what this sword looks like?”

“Unfortunately, I do not, but I am told that it should become obvious once we find it,” Julio answered with a shrug. “Now, obviously we will need to gather a rescue party, but I will leave that to your capable hands. The Pope’s only demand is that I accompany the team, but otherwise it is free to be led and composed by whomever Tristain sees fit.”

Henrietta pursed her lips in thought, then nodded. “That sounds agreeable.”

“Splendid!” Julio replied, clapping his hands together. He then let out a short yawn and he cupped his mouth. “Goodness, it is getting quite late. Forgive me, but I have been riding on dragonback for days on end from Romalia to here, which is quite the journey.”

“I imagine so,” Karin replied, knowing exactly what he was referring to. The distance between Tristain and Romalia was quite vast, after all.

Henrietta nodded at her, then stood up and remarked, “I suppose it’s time for all of us to get some sleep, especially since we know what to do next. In the morning, we can figure out the finer details.”

“Of course, Princess,” Cardinal Mazarin replied, giving her a short, respectful bow. At the same time, he glanced at Julio suspiciously from the corner of his eye, knowing that the young man was hiding something. Something that didn’t bode well for Louise, depending on circumstances. Nevertheless, he knew they had no other options, and so he’d play along for now.

One by one, the others stood up and bowed towards Princess Henrietta as she retired to her guest chambers. Only once she was out of the office did they follow, all of them eager to get a night’s sleep. At the same time, Éléonore couldn’t help but wonder what Louise was doing at that very moment. Was she scared, alone, confused? Was she even still alive? Éléonore didn’t know the answers to any of those questions, but knew that dwelling on them wasn’t going to help. At least with this turn of events, they finally had a course of action available to focus on, with a potential method to reach Louise currently on his way to them. All she could do now was prepare whatever they needed to rescue her troublesome sister from wherever the Pope’s ritual would send them, and pray.

~

_September 12 th, 1998 11:05 PM_

_Hiraga Apartment_

_Raccoon City, Arklay County, United States of America_

Saito smiled expectantly as the movie he and Louise were watching ended, credits accompanied by a bombastic orchestral score. He was swaying his head from side to side in conjunction with the soundtrack while watching Louise’s face from the corner of his eye. He might as well have not existed as Louise’s attention was glued to the TV, her mouth agape and her eyes wide in wonder and awe.

“So, what did you think?” Saito asked, his smile widening.

“That was… _amazing_ ,” Louise breathlessly admitted as her face broke out into a wide smile. Saito’s smile grew wider as well and he pumped his fist victoriously.

“And you thought _Star Wars_ sounded dumb,” he playfully mocked as he pointed at her, to which Louise puffed up her checks and lightly punched him in the shoulder. Saito couldn’t help but laugh at the response, falling back into the arm of the sofa while Louise looked away and crossed her arms.

“Okay, I was…mistaken,” Louise quietly admitted. “That doesn’t mean you get to make fun of me…”

“Wasn’t making fun,” Saito replied, but clearly Louise didn’t believe him as she huffed and looked away. He then asked, “So what was your favorite part about it?”

For a while, Louise looked overwhelmed with indecision at his question, unable to choose just one thing to talk about first before everything else in the movie. The designs, the sheer spectacle on display, not to mention the thrilling events depicted, such as the boarding of the spaceship at the beginning of the movie and the destruction of the Death Star. It was so far beyond anything she could have previously conceived of, yet at the same time strikingly familiar and understandable. It was probably why Saito insisted that she’d love it. Finally, after a few moments of thought, she finally answered.

“Princess Leia, I think, especially when she takes charge of the attempt to rescue her,” she decided with a soft grin. “She reminded me of some of the stories I heard about my mother’s exploits when she was younger.”

“Oh really? And here I thought Han Solo was your favorite character from how much attention you paid to him,” Saito teased. He was expecting the punch thrown at his shoulder this time, and dodged it with an evil cackle as the teenage girl fumed at his insinuation with a red face.

“How dare-! As if anyone would be attracted to such a scoundrel!”

“I didn’t say anything about being attracted, though?” he pointed out then laughed. Saito’s laughter was cut off by one of the couch pillows being smacked over his head, and he quickly surrendered and appealed for mercy. He still couldn’t help chuckling throughout the process though, which irked her to no end.

Glancing at the clock, he noted how late it was. He knew they should be getting to bed by now, but after seeing how enraptured Louise was with _Star Wars_ , a different idea came to mind. Besides, it was a Saturday. They could afford staying up late.

“You know,” he began as he walked over to the shelf where his family stored their VHS tapes, “that was just _Episode IV: A New Hope._ There’s still _Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back,_ and _Episode VI: Return of the Jedi_.”

“…You mean there’s _more_?” Louise asked as she looked at Saito with wide eyes, her earlier anger completely forgotten. In response, Saito smiled and waved the two cassette cases in front of him, and to his amusement, her eyes followed them wherever they went.

“Yep. Wanna watch ‘em?” Saito asked with a cocky grin.

At Louise’s fervent nodding, Saito chuckled then rewound the first tape, took it out, and placed the second one in. Once he pressed play, he sat back with Louise as the pair were taken on a journey that happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Reflexively, he spread his arms along the back of the sofa in order to relieve some of the built-up tension, which inadvertently went over Louise’s shoulders. Once he realized his position, he flinched and prepared to back away, but to his surprise she absentmindedly leaned further into him. Taking it as tacit approval, Saito kept his arm in place, and the pair continued to watch their movie in blissful, relaxing silence.

[~][~]


	5. Chapter 5: Left and Right Hands, Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life in Raccoon City continues on. Meanwhile, in Halkegenia, the Pope's involvement has led to some unforeseen developments. Ones that will shake the course of history forever.

**Familiar Evil (ZnT/Resident Evil)  
Chapter 5: Left and Right Hands, Part 1**

[~][~]

_September 13 th, 1998 6:00 PM_

_Arklay Forest_

_Raccoon City, Arklay Country, United States of America_

Louise let out yet another yawn as she and Saito rode the bus towards the library. Both of them had gotten hardly any sleep that night, having spent their time marathoning the entire _Star Wars_ trilogy. Despite how tired she got towards the end of _Return of the Jedi_ , she was so enraptured by them that she was able to stay awake the entire time. Granted, she collapsed on the sofa and fell asleep as soon as the third movie ended, but she still felt as though it was worth it. Never could she have imagined before now such a grand and fantastical tale that was still understandable to her, despite her being as far from the intended audience as possible. Along with everything else she had learned since arriving on Earth, Louise planned to share _Star Wars_ as well, for she was certain everyone in the kingdom would love it just as she did.

Of course, her waking up at noon while being wrapped around Saito on the sofa like a pillow was something she could have lived without, even if it did feel kind of nice in the moment. Especially with the utter embarrassment she felt when Saito’s parents ended up being the ones who woke her up in the first place. The worst part was seeing the grins on their faces, and even now she thanked the Founder that, thus far, Saito had no idea what happened. Or at the very least he wasn’t saying anything, either out of mutual embarrassment that he was hiding better than her or out of simple courtesy. In any case, she was grateful that Saito wasn’t bringing it up.

Eager to clear her thoughts, Louise looked out the window as they neared the library. It was several miles away, forcing them to use the bus, as it was too far for them to walk at a reasonable pace. Luckily, the library was among the first stops on their route. They had taken this bus numerous times now, both to and from the library, and by now Louise had memorized the shops and buildings along the way. Their route started right outside the Hiraga’s apartment in the West District near West Park, then went north towards the Raccoon Zoo and the Central Raccoon Rail Line. After that, they continued north past Spencer Memorial Hospital along with the St. Michael Clock Tower, then Raccoon Park where they finally got off and walked the rest of the way towards the public library. On the way back, they would pass a few more notable landmarks, including the nuclear power plant which provided Raccoon City with all of its power, as well as the local community college, the police department, St. Michael Stadium, then finally return to West Park.

Once their bus finally stopped at the entrance to Raccoon Park, they got out of their seats and exited the vehicle with several other people. A few, including Saito and Louise, bid the bus driver thanks, but most were too busy and carried on with their day. The library itself was just a block away from their stop, and without missing a beat they turned towards their destination and began walking.

“Could you imagine having to walk from my house to here?” Saito rhetorically asked, holding the cooler containing the day’s fresh targets. “It would take hours, at least.”

Louise snorted and shook her head, then joked, “Honestly, that’s not as big of a deal to me as you would think.”

“Oh, really?” Saito asked as he raised an inquisitive eyebrow and glanced down at Louise, who looked right back up at him.

“Yes,” Louise declared. “Do you know how long it took for me to go from the Academy to Tristainia? It’s only thirty miles away, which for you and your family’s car is nothing, yet I’d have to either walk for two days or ride horseback for three hours. That’s _normal_ for me.”

Saito looked at her for a moment, then shrugged and admitted, “You know what, fair enough. Jeez, it only just now occurred to me just how slow things are for you guys.”

“Or how fast things are for you,” Louise countered. “I swear, sometimes it feels like your society just doesn’t know when to slow down. I can hardly catch up as it is, and it feels like each day it gets faster and faster.”

“Yeah, it gets like that sometimes,” Saito confirmed. “Personally, I think you’ve been adjusting really well, all things considered.”

“Thank you,” Louise replied just as they started walking up the steps to the library’s front door. “Although, your calendar is still confusing to me. What’s so difficult about having every month be equal? Our year is three-hundred-and-eighty-four days, separated out into twelve months of thirty-two days, divided further into four eight-day weeks. It’s simple, yet you guys have some months being thirty, others being thirty one, and don’t get me started on February! You people need to make up your minds! What even _is_ a leap day?!”

Saito could only laugh and shake his head at Louise’s rant. It was one she’d had quite a few times by now, and he found it amusing.

“While I do agree that the months being the same would be a Hell of a lot easier,” Saito admitted, “unfortunately our planets just don’t match up that way. I mean, Tristain was in late spring or early summer while we’re in late summer or early fall. Can’t expect our worlds to match up one to one. Frankly, I say we’re lucky enough as it is that we both have twelve months and twenty-four hour days.”

“True…” Louise grumbled, then huffed and crossed her arms. Saito let out a chuckle, then turned his attention back to where he was going.

Once they entered the building, both Saito and Louise took a brief detour to relieve themselves in the nearest restrooms. After that, Louise returned the books she had checked out, pulling them out of Saito’s backpack, then the pair left through the backdoor towards the Arklay Forest. Walking along the dirt path to the greenhouse, which was on the other side of the Circular River which forced them to cross a wooden bridge, they peeled off and headed north near the halfway point. They continued walking until they reached a spot near the river’s banks where no one was watching them.

“Alright, you take the chickens and I’ll get everything set up,” Saito said as he placed the cooler down then slid off his backpack.

As he began to set up his camcorder along with a tripod mount he had purchased, Louise opened the cooler and pulled out one of the raw chickens they were using. Both of them had learned their lesson after the first time, and no longer were they setting them all up at once. Instead, using a fallen log that they had chosen as their mount that already had quite a few broken segments along the trunk, she placed one of the chickens onto a relatively flat spot. She supposed that, eventually, they’d have to find a new log to serve as their stand. Either that or pile up a few rocks, but at the moment neither Louise nor Saito felt comfortable potentially blowing one of those up.

Once the chicken was properly set, Louise stepped back to her marked spot, which was a fairly flat stone that they had managed to find. A few moments later, Saito announced that the camera was set, and she was ready to start at any time. She nodded towards her friend then took a deep breath. The world seemed to calm around her, any noise and sensations ceasing to exist. When she opened her eyes, all she could clearly see was her target, everything else looking blurred.

“Fireball!” Louise cast the spell, striking the chicken center mass. It flew back into the forest, breaking apart into several large chunks before impacting against a large tree. A few bits of meaty residue was left on the bark as the carcass fell to the forest floor, where it laid among the tree’s roots.

“That was great! Let’s move on to the next one,” Saito said as he swiveled the camcorder back towards Louise, having tracked the carcass as it flew off.

Nodding towards her coach, Louise pulled out another target then set it on the same place as before. This time, she added more distance between herself and the fallen log. It was an exercise suggested by Saito, whose reasoning was that if Louise could hit her targets at greater ranges, that meant her control would improve. It was sound logic, in Louise’s opinion, and thus far it had shown some results. The first time she tried it, she completely missed her target and blew up a nearby tree, shattering the trunk and causing it to fall over away from them. The next few attempts hadn’t gone much better, but by now her aim had greatly improved. She was reminded of this as she cast Fireball once again and hit the side of the chicken, causing it to explode and leave a smoldering chunk in its place. A few pieces of bone and attached meat flew by her head, forcing her to flinch and recoil back, but otherwise she smiled at the results of a successful test.

“A little to the side, but still good!” Saito announced, then gave Louise a thumbs up. “Let’s keep going!”

Louise flashed a smile towards Saito then proceeded to pull out yet another target. One by one for the next hour, she and Saito continued their tests, taking some breaks to review the footage Saito had shot. Once again, Saito was proven correct as the extra view afforded Louise several opportunities to spot when she had placed too much power into her magic, or too little in other cases. The results of her aim were also analyzed by watching where the explosion emerged on the target. Most hit along the sides, especially at greater distances, but there were far more center-mass shots than before.

“Well, I think it’s safe to say that you’re getting a lot better at your explosions,” Saito suggested. “Or at least your aim.”

“It’s a start,” Louise admitted then sighed and shook her head. “Still, the power keeps, what’s the word?”

“Fluctuating?”

“Yes, fluctuating. It keeps fluctuating. Sometimes it’s big, sometimes it’s small. There’s no real consistency, no matter how much willpower I put into it,” Louise admitted, then crossed her arms and huffed. “It’s infuriating.”

“I can tell,” Saito replied after quickly glancing at her. He then pursed his lips in thought and asked, “Any idea why?”

Louise sighed and shook her head, “No, I don’t. What’s worse is that this isn’t even a new problem. I’ve been having trouble controlling the power of my spells since I was a child, no matter which spell or affinity I used.”

“Hmm,” Saito hummed and tapped his chin, then asked, “Mind explaining elemental affinities to me, again? There’s three of them, right?”

“Four, actually,” Louise clarified. “Each one corresponding to a different element. There’s Fire, Water, Earth, and Air.”

“Right, right. Kinda like the four phases of matter, at least to a certain extent.” Saito nodded, then pointed at her. “If I remember correctly, fire-mages can only use fire magic, water mages can only use water, and so on. Right?”

“That’s actually a common misconception,” Louise clarified as she held up a finger. “While it is true that mages can cast spells of their affinities much more easily than others, that does not limit them from casting spells from other elements. The ranking structure of Dot, Line, Triangle, and Square doesn’t denote how many elements a mage can use, rather it speaks to how many can be combined with each other.”

“I don’t understand the difference,” Saito admitted, and Louise nodded as she turned towards him.

“It’s easy. All mages start off as Dot-class. That means they can only use one element at a time, which limits them to the simplest and weakest of spells. For example, the spell Fireball is the most basic offensive fire spell there is. All it creates is a simple fireball, and nothing more. If I was a Dot-class mage and I tried adding on to Fireball, however, it wouldn’t work.”

“Ah, I see. So, once a Dot-class mage reaches Line, they can combine two different affinities to make stronger spells?”

“Not always,” Louise answered. Seeing Saito raise an eyebrow in confusion, she added, “Going up in rank doesn’t necessarily mean that you can now combine different elements together. Oftentimes it simply means you can stack the same element on top of each other. For example, my…classmate Kirche von Zerbst is a Triangle-class mage, but all she can do is stack three fire elemental spells on top of each other to boost their effects.”

“Ooh, like going from Fire to Fira then Firaga in _Final Fantasy_ ,” Saito surmised. Louise tried to figure out what, exactly, he was talking about, then remembered seeing him play a video game on his PlayStation with that name, then nodded.

“Yes, I suppose so,” she said. If it helped Saito visualize what she was talking about, then she could accept it despite her confusion. Louise then continued, “In any case, Dots can only use one element at a time. Lines can use two, Triangles can use three, and finally Squares can use four. They don’t have to be different elements, but either way the ranking of the mage denotes just how powerful their magic can be. A Square-class fire spell is several times more powerful than a Dot-class, and the same goes for all the other elements.”

“I see,” Saito replied, humming to himself and rubbing his chin. “I’m going to take a wild guess and say it’s hard to go up the rankings.”

“Tremendously,” Louise confirmed with a quick nod. “I’m a second-year student at the Tristain Academy of Magic, and most of my classmates are Dot-class mages. The only ones who aren’t are Kirche and my classmate Tabitha. Kirche can combine three fire elements together, while Tabitha can combine wind and water magic several times to make ice. As you can imagine, the number of Square-class mages is even smaller.”

“Sounds like a pyramid,” Saito surmised. “Dot-class mages make up the large base, with Square-class at the very top and in the lowest quantity.”

Louise thought the image over, then nodded after finding the metaphor appropriate and declared, “Exactly.”

Saito nodded, then asked, “Maybe you’re just not using the right affinity?”

“I’ve tried all of them, Saito,” Louise reminded him, her eyes narrowing. “It doesn’t matter if I use wind, fire, water, or earth magic. They all result in an explosion. The only magic I can properly cast are cantrips, and those are so simple that they don’t even _need_ an affinity.”

Saito tilted his head at her, then scrunched up his face in thought. He was trying to remember something that she had absentmindedly mentioned at one point or another, then he began to shake his finger to help him concentrate.

“Hold on, um, wasn’t there another element? The one that Brimir dude used?” Saito asked as he snapped his fingers a few times. “Void, right? Have you tried that?”

Louise stared numbly at Saito, part of her wanting to begin shouting at him for daring to insinuate such a heretical idea. The mere thought of her possessing Void magic was incomprehensible and completely at odds with everything she believed. Yet, she forced herself not to lash out, remembering that Saito wasn’t part of her culture. He didn’t understand why suggesting such things was heavily taboo, and he was just trying to help her.

“No, because I can’t,” Louise answered, taking a long, heavy breath. “Yes, there is a fifth element: Void magic, the same type of magic Brimir used six-thousand years ago. But after he died, Void magic never reappeared. The only Void mage in history was the Founder, and last I checked, I’m not him.”

“But, if you’ve tried all the rest—” Saito began, only for Louise to angrily cut him off.

“I’m not a Void mage!” she snarled. Saito recoiled back in surprise, and Louise’s face softened as she realized what she did. Letting out a regretful sigh, she admitted, “I’m sorry, it’s just…”

“No, it’s fine,” Saito gently said, cutting her off and raising a hand placatingly. “I take it that Void magic is a big deal.”

“You have no idea, Saito,” Louise admitted, letting out another sigh. She then looked up at him and explained, “Founder Brimir is a messiah for my people. He gave us…everything. How we perform magic, the kingdoms, even our magocracy. Without the Founder, we would be just a bunch of savages living under the mercy of wild spirits and elves. To say that you’re a Void mage is to equate yourself with the Founder, which is heresy of the highest order. Besides, as I said he’s the only Void mage in history. Not once in six-thousand years has it returned, so the odds of me, of all people, being able to use it instead of, say, Princess Henrietta who is a _direct descendent of the Founder_ , is ludicrous. It’s impossible, really.”

“I think I see what you mean,” Saito replied, then looked Louise straight in the eye. “Look, I’m not saying anything. You know more about this magic stuff than I do, and if you’re saying that you’re not a Void mage, then I trust you. But, remember you’re not in Halkegenia anymore. You’re in Raccoon City on Earth, which is on a completely different world than the one you called home. When everyone else brought their familiar to them, you brought _yourself_ to your familiar, whatever the Hell it was. You’ve already done something that no one else has ever done before. Who’s to say you can’t do it again? Besides, if you’ve tried all the possible options, then only the impossible ones remain.”

“That…doesn’t make any sense.”

“Okay, what I mean is this,” Saito said as he leaned forward and spread his hands across from each other. “There are four, technically five, magical elements that you or any other mage can potentially use. Being able to use Void magic was immediately declared impossible, so you didn’t even try. Instead, you focused on the other four, which didn’t work out very well. That means the only affinity left to try was the one you previously dismissed: Void magic. All you’d need to do is just try a Void spell to see if it works. What’s the harm in that?”

Louise supposed that Saito had something of a point, but she still found it exceedingly hard to believe. More importantly, even if he was correct and she was a Void mage, there was an entirely different problem that would be quite impossible to overcome.

“Even if that was true,” Louise declared, narrowing her eyes, “there’s another problem: there _aren’t_ any Void spells for me to learn, much less cast. There hasn’t been a Void mage in thousands of years, so there wasn’t a reason or ability to make more.”

“…Oh, right,” Saito quietly replied, frowning to himself and looking away for a moment. “Yeah, that is a problem, ain’t it?”

“Indeed,” Louise plainly stated, then looked to see that the sun was beginning to set. Standing up with a slight groan, she said, “It’s getting late. We should probably get going.”

Saito looked towards the horizon, saw the descending sun, then nodded as he, too, stood up. Stretching out his arms, he began to fold up the tripod and place it along with the camcorder into his backpack. They left the scraps of meat laying about, figuring that the local wildlife would take care of it for them naturally.

Once they were fully packed up, both teenagers walked back the way they came. Since they had come down this way dozens of times before, they knew it well. Neither of them feared getting lost in the woods by now. Instead, as the sun continued to set, they were far more concerned about losing their footing. The ground was rough in areas, so they had to watch their step. At first, everything was going fine, with both Saito and Louise walking together confidently and at a brisk pace. Then, as the ground grew slightly slanted and became filled with loose rocks, they had to slow down. As the stronger of the two, Saito was able to keep up his pace at a more manageable level, despite carrying more weight, but Louise was forced to slow down a bit more. She didn’t have to crawl along the ground, but every few steps was wobbly.

“You okay back there?” Saito asked a little ways ahead.

“Yes, I’m good,” Louise replied, slowly reaching out with her foot to find a secure position. Once she found it, she took a step, then repeated the process ad nauseum.

“Okay, just be careful. Some of these rocks look a little loose,” Saito pointed out as he carefully walked forward.

“I’ll be fine, Saito,” Louise said as she took another step forward. “There’s no need to—”

Her words cut off as the rock she stepped on slipped out from the dirt, taking her along with it. With a quick yelp, Louise lost her footing and fell down the hill into a roll. The world spun and turned into a dark green blur as her body bounced along the grassy ground, each impact sending jolts of pain up her body. Only when she slammed against the bottom of the hill did she stop moving, where she came to rest along her back, looking straight up at the forest canopy.

“…ow,” Louise groaned, her entire body feeling sore.

“Oh my God, Louise!” Saito shouted as he threw the cooler to the side and slid down the hill. He rushed over to her as she began to push herself off the ground, where he gently held her upper body at an incline. Looking down on her with no small amount of concern, he asked, “Are you okay?”

“Ugh, I feel like I’ve been riding horseback for hours,” Louise answered with a groan. Her entire body was covered in dirt and grass, along with a few scratches and bruises on her face.

“Anything broken?” Saito asked as he helped her sit upright. To his relief, she shook her head.

“No, just…really, really sore,” she admitted. “I’m fine.”

“You sure? That was a nasty fall,” Saito pointed out, but Louise shook her head.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Louise confirmed.

Saito nodded and let out a sigh of relief, then stood up and gently grabbed hold of Louise’s shoulders. “Here, let me help you up.”

“Aagh…thank you,” Louise replied after letting out another grunt of pain. With Saito’s help, she began to stand up on her own, but as soon as she put pressure on her feet, her right ankle suddenly flared.

“GAAGH!” she screamed, falling back down and clutching her ankle in an effort to stem the pain.

“What?! What’s wrong?!” Saito frantically asked as he looked at the joint in question.

“My ankle,” Louise revealed through gritted teeth. “I think it’s sprained.”

Kneeling next to her right ankle, Saito slightly rolled up the bottom of her pant leg to get a better look. He winced at the sight of the red and swelling joint, an injury he knew all too well after playing baseball for years.

“Yep, it’s definitely sprained,” Saito revealed as he gripped his chin in thought. “You’re not going to be able to walk on that.”

“No kidding, aagh,” Louise groaned. It wasn’t a particularly intense pain, but rather a dull throb that just would not go away. Saito looked down at his friend in sympathy, then began to look around the forest as an idea came to mind.

“Hold on, stay right there,” he said as he began to walk off.

“It’s not like I can go anywhere,” Louise sharply pointed out as she glared at her companion. As he began to move further away from her, though, she nervously asked, “Hey, where are you going?”

“Just grabbing some stuff to help,” Saito replied as he moved up the hill and just out of sight.

“…Saito?” Louise called out, staring towards where her friend disappeared.

For a few minutes, she was left alone, the sun beginning to set beneath the horizon and joined only by the sound of rushing water from the Circular River along with the chirping of birds and chittering of insects. A little further downstream, she saw a few deer drinking from the river, and occasionally the surface of the water would ripple as a fish or turtle broke the surface. Overall, the scenery was tranquil, yet she couldn’t help but feel more and more nervous as time went on.

Finally, just when she was about to call out again, she heard Saito return. He slid down the hill and ran towards her. As he drew close, Louise’s prior nervousness was replaced by irritation, and she slapped his arm and shouted, “You stupid dog! How could you abandon me like that?!”

“I wasn’t—Ugh, sorry,” Saito apologized, wincing at his blunder. He was in such a rush that he forgot to fully explain himself.

“What were you doing?” Louise demanded to know, and in response Saito held out his hand to reveal a small green plant.

“Arklay green herb,” Saito revealed as he tried to give it to her. “They grow all over the place. Didn’t take long for me to find one.”

“…Okay,” Louise slowly replied, then asked, “How is a plant supposed to help a sprained ankle?”

“Arklay herbs are world famous for their medicinal value,” Saito replied. “Eat this and you’ll be good as new.”

Louise looked at him with narrowed eyes for a moment. He was silently begging her to believe him, and despite still feeling angry at his supposed abandonment, Saito had shown no reason not to trust him thus far. With a reluctant sigh, Louise grabbed the mashed up herb and threw it into her mouth. She almost immediately wanted to gag, as the taste was extremely bitter and the texture was foul. Yet she persisted, and after a few chews swallowed the mixture.

“Uggh, what was that?” Louise gagged and shook her head, her entire body following suit.

She wanted to chastise Saito more, but suddenly found that the pain in her body was beginning to go away. Astonished, Louise looked down at her ankle and saw the red swelling recede, and after just a few moments, it was completely healed. Not just her ankle, but even the bruises and scratches on her body and face healed up as well. If she didn’t know any better, she wouldn’t have even thought she’d fallen down at all.

“What just…?” Louise quietly asked as she stood up on her own power.

“I told you, Arklay herbs are world-famous. They’re really, and I mean _really_ , good natural medicine, antibiotics, painkillers, and more,” Saito revealed. “The taste and texture’s God awful, and if you take too much you’ll get dehydrated, but they heal practically anything less than a gunshot or a broken bone. Even then, it depends on where you got shot and how bad the break is, and the herbs speed up the recovery tremendously regardless. Just by taking three green herbs, or a mixture of green and red, you can treat almost anything.”

Louise looked at Saito incredulously, then asked, “And they just…grow naturally?”

“Yeah, all over Arklay County.” Saito nodded. “Not only that, pretty much everyone in Raccoon City grows some for personal use, and a lot of Umbrella’s best medicines are just these herbs concentrated or refined. Like their first aid spray. If it’s serious, then yeah, go to the doctor or hospital, but for minor things those herbs are hard to beat.”

Louise looked at the green residue on her hands numbly, her mind racing a mile a minute. She then looked up shakily at Saito, and suggested, “Saito, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say these herbs were magic.”

“What? No,” Saito replied, shaking his head. “I know you may have some plants like that back home for potions or stuff, but I told you: magic doesn’t exist here.”

“Yeah, we do have plants like this back in Tristain,” Louise revealed, then held up her hand in emphasis. “This herb you just fed me, Saito, was better than pretty much everything I’ve seen before. Do you know what potion makers would do to get their hands on this? They’d kill for it, guaranteed.”

“…Okay? So Arklay herbs are bullshit, that isn’t anything new,” Saito pointed out. “I don’t see how it’s worth getting into a fuss over.”

“It is to me, because now I’m convinced these herbs are magical in some way. Non-magical plants do _not_ heal someone this effectively, nor this quickly,” Louise declared. “If I’m right about our worlds crossing over in the past, this could be a lead to get back home.”

“…This is going to be like when you found out about the Norse gods, isn’t it?” Saito asked, remembering that day they spent on mythological research after Louise noted some striking similarities between the Norse pantheon and her own faith.

“Yes, it is,” Louise replied. “Now come on, let’s get to the library and start studying.”

Saito watched Louise go back up the hill, somehow faster than she was before. Sighing to himself, he hurried after her, grabbed the cooler from where he’d dropped it, then ran out in front.

“We can check some books out,” Saito countered, “but we are _not_ staying the whole night. I have school in the morning, so I can’t afford to stay up all night like you can.”

Louise looked at her companion for a moment, then sighed and nodded. She then said, “Alright, fine. But I am going to get a drink. I’m completely parched.”

“Yeah, the herbs will do that,” Saito reminded, then together the two walked back to the library. Once they returned to the dirt path and went along it back to the library itself, Saito then asked, “Before you start diving into the exciting field of botany, do you still want to watch _Raiders of the Lost Ark_?”

“Is it good?”

“One of the best action-adventure movies ever made.”

“Then yes, once we get back.”

~

_Tristain Academy of Magic_

_Kingdom of Tristain, Halkegenia_

If Princess Henrietta thought that the atmosphere surrounding the academy following Louise’s disappearance was suffocating, it had become even worse once they all found out that Pope Vittorio Serevare St. Aegis of Romalia was coming there personally. The implications of such a visit so soon after Louise’s disappearance wasn’t lost on anyone. Neither the students nor the faculty, much less Henrietta herself. It was almost too much to bear, yet she had to endure. As Princess and soon-to-be Queen of Tristain, Henrietta de Tristain could do no less. Still, it was hard not to feel overwhelmed, especially since just a few short months ago her life was easy. All that was expected of her was to be the perfect princess, beloved by the people and isolated from the greater troubles that came with rule by her parents. At least they attempted to. Despite their well-intentioned efforts, Henrietta was still able to figure out what was going on outside the palace walls, but knew there wasn’t anything she could do about it. Not in her current station, at least.

But then her father died, and her mother fell into a deep spiral of grief that she showed no signs of climbing out of. The country was effectively leaderless, causing the palace itself to become consumed by infighting. This sudden change in circumstances forced Henrietta to grow into her role quickly, and she had begun to throw her weight around more and more just to get anything done. Henrietta was confident that, in the end, she would be able to secure her position, but she didn’t know how stable that throne would be when she sat in it.

Still, she almost preferred dealing with palace intrigue than what she was doing now. Those arguments were purely Tristainian affairs, even if they had come at a most inopportune time. The last thing they needed was to be distracted while their ally, the Tudors, were being slaughtered by traitors. But, now that the Pope was involved, Louise’s disappearance had become an international concern, one that was quickly noticed by the other kingdoms. She had been tight-lipped thus far, and she could only hope that none of the other kingdoms would grow too suspicious by the time the operation was done.

Right now, though, Henrietta forced herself not to be concerned by that. Instead, she allowed herself a moment of respite as she sank into the warm bath water, letting it soak into her body and relax her muscles. After over a month of non-stop stress, just the act of taking a bath felt like a much-needed vacation.

“Aaah, this feels so nice,” Henrietta declared as she leaned back against the bath’s rim.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying the bath, Princess,” Agnès replied, leaning against the wall of the bathroom while keeping a vigilant eye on their surroundings.

“You’re free to join me, if you want,” Henrietta offered, but Agnès shook her head.

“I’ll be better suited to perform my duties here,” Agnès pointed out.

Henrietta sighed and shook her head, having expected that answer despite the fact that they were the only ones in the bath house. Agnès, a young woman in her early twenties with short blonde hair, piercing green eyes, and wearing a dark green tunic and black pants over chainmail, was truly dedicated to her role as Henrietta’s bodyguard. The two had known each other for a few years now, and Henrietta had come to trust Agnès tremendously in that time. If there was something she needed to get done, she trusted Agnès to be able to do it quickly and quietly. Such as when she had Agnès deliver the Founder’s Prayer Book to her from the capital, as well as accompany Julio Chesaré in the search for the ancient sword they needed to find Louise. Finding the prayer book was easy, but it took several days to find the sword.

Eventually, though, they managed to discover it in a seedy low-rate weapons shop of all things, and to everyone’s surprise (except for Julio, who probably counted on it), the sword turned out to be sentient, a living blade named Derflinger. The heavily rusted artifact was six-thousand years old and claimed to be the weapon of the legendary Gandálfr, a claim backed up by Julio himself after they secured Derflinger’s purchase. Apparently, that wasn’t very difficult, as Derflinger proved to be highly talkative and had been driving away the merchant’s customers for quite some time. He almost paid Agnès and Julio to take Derflinger off his hands, from what Henrietta had been told. After one conversation between herself and Derflinger where the blade “revealed” what the Founder’s favorite dirty joke supposedly was, she understood why.

Henrietta honestly thought Éléonore was going to melt him down for that, as was nearly everyone else in the room. Personally, she thought the joke was hilarious, but forced herself to look as insulted as the others. Right now, Derflinger was currently being restored by Professor Colbert, as a rusted sword was of no use to anyone, much less the Gandálfr who supposedly would be Louise’s familiar.

She sighed once again as that persistent thought sprang to mind, and she sunk further into the bath. Only her nose and the top of her head remained above the water, and a few bubbles came up from her slow breathing.

“Is something the matter, Princess?” Agnès asked in concern. With a groan, Henrietta rose up slightly, allowing her head to poke above the water’s surface. She wanted to deny it and say everything was fine, but she knew Agnès wouldn’t believe that.

“…No,” she admitted as she hugged her knees close. With another sigh, she added, “It’s just…all of this. Louise, the Pope, Void…It’s all too much…”

Agnès was silent at first, a small frown on her face as she looked at the distraught girl, then nodded and said, “I understand.”

“Do you?” Henrietta asked, looking at Agnès. Not in anger, but in genuine curiosity.

As much as she trusted, respected, and liked Agnès, at the end of the day she was still a commoner while Henrietta was a Princess. She would love to rectify that by bringing one of her most loyal subjects up to the station she deserved, but unfortunately Henrietta had neither the clout nor justification to do so. At the moment, they lived in two entirely separate worlds, and through each other only got glimpses of what the other had to go through. To her credit, Agnès wasn’t offended by Henrietta’s statement. 

“I do, yes,” Agnès confirmed, crossing her arms and nodding. “I may not be in your position, nor do I see everything you do, but I see enough. Enough to know that this entire situation is growing more and more complicated every second. I liked it better when it was just the disappearance of a duke’s daughter, not the retrieval of a Void mage.”

“We don’t know that for certain,” Henrietta pointed out, only for Agnès to raise her eyebrow at her.

“Why else would the Pope step in?” Agnès rhetorically asked.

After a moment, Henrietta sighed and hung her head, knowing that Agnès was absolutely correct. The only reason why the Church was getting so heavily involved was because of what they all knew Louise had: the power of Void, the first person to do so in six thousand years. Undoubtedly that drew the Church’s attention, as it would others’ once the secret got out. Right now, thankfully, no one else had managed to connect the dots, and Henrietta had vowed to keep it that way for as long as possible.

“You’re right,” Henrietta admitted, then leaned back and added, “Founder give me strength…”

Agnès looked at Henrietta for a moment, frowning slightly before sighing and shaking her head. Figuring now was as good a time as any, she asked, “How goes the selection process?”

Henrietta looked up at Agnès then said, “You mean for the rescue party? It’s going well, for the most part.”

“What about size and composition?”

“Duchess Vallière believes a party of twenty will be enough to properly secure Louise. While she’d prefer for all of them to be high-level mages, realistically that isn’t going to happen,” Henrietta admitted. “As such, the rescue party will be comprised of eight mages and twelve commoners.”

“I’m surprised they’re letting commoner soldiers in at all,” Agnès muttered under her breath. Henrietta picked up on it regardless, but rather than feel irritated at the anti-nobility sentiment Agnès was clearly showing, instead the princess nodded.

“I was able to convince them of the necessity,” Henrietta clarified. “We simply don’t have the time nor resources to spare in gathering twenty triangle or square-class mages.”

Agnès looked at Henrietta for a moment, then admitted, “A fair assessment. Any ideas as to who these mages and commoners will be?”

“For obvious reasons, Karin de la Vallière will be leading the operation,” Henrietta revealed. “Her husband, Duke Vallière, wanted to come as well, but the Duchess talked him out of it. If something were to go wrong and both heads of the Vallière family were there…”

“It would be disastrous,” Agnès finished, and Henrietta nodded. Nodding back, Agnès continued, “I sense Professor Colbert will be coming as well?”

“Yes, he is,” Henrietta confirmed. “Despite his friendly nature, Professor Colbert is actually an ex-soldier and a square-class fire mage. He also feels guilty over Louise’s situation, so he was the first to volunteer.”

“I’d imagine so,” Agnès replied, frowning at the mention of the fire mage. She only met him once, and while he definitely was much kinder than most of the other nobles she had met, the fact that he was a fire mage made her distrust him immediately. It was fire mages who burned down her village of D'Angleterre over rumors and lies ten years prior, and after that she vowed to never blindly trust a mage again. Only Princess Henrietta had proven worthy of her loyalty and respect so far, and she doubted anyone else would.

“Other than Priest Chesaré, no one else has been selected,” Henrietta confirmed. “I believe, though, that Duchess Vallière plans on reaching out to the Viscount of Wardes, Jean-Jacques Francis, on account of him being both the captain of the Griffon Knights and Louise’s fiancé.”

Agnès nodded, figuring that his presence made sense. At the same time, though, she frowned as she began picking up on subtle details regarding the decision-making process. Deciding to be upfront about her suspicions, Agnès said, “Princess, if I may? While all of these party members are sound choices, it appears to me that you’re letting Duchess Vallière make all the decisions.”

Henrietta looked at her trusted bodyguard and wanted to refute the accusation, and found that she could not. She sighed and hung her head, then admitted, “Yes, she has been. It’s her daughter, after all, so she should have final say in this matter.”

“But you’re the princess,” Agnès pointedly reminded her. “Despite her age and rank, she is beneath you in station. You cannot let her nor anyone else continue to make decisions without your input.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Henrietta asked, frowning slightly at Agnès. “I’m completely out of my depth here, Agnès. The most serious planning I’ve ever done before was for palace balls, and even then those were small and mostly handled by my mother. I’m only seventeen years old, so anything I say is almost immediately dismissed by those older than me. The only reason why Karin even agreed to the addition of commoners to the party is because she was already thinking of it.”

“I understand that,” Agnès replied, stepping forward off the wall, “and I’m not saying you need to disregard the opinions of those who are more experienced than you. Doing that would be stupid, which you are not. What I am saying, though, is that you need to assert yourself more. Not only for your best friend, but for the country. The last thing Tristain needs is for its Queen to be easily pushed around.”

Henrietta glared at Agnès for a few moments, who glared right back. Neither were willing to back down, but eventually Henrietta released a sigh and looked away. Agnès was right, she realized. She had to assert herself and her authority more in this matter, despite her age and inexperience. But she had to do it in a way that wouldn’t jeopardize the entire mission. Attempting to insist on something inadvisable just because she wanted to add her stamp to it would only lead to disaster, as well as an erosion of her support. Henrietta had to find a middle ground.

Then, as she looked back at Agnès, an idea came to mind. With a smile on her face, Henrietta said, “You’re right, Agnès. I do need to assert myself more here, and I intend to do that during our next meeting this afternoon.”

“I’m glad to hear it, Princess,” Agnès replied, a faint smile on her face, only for Henrietta to continue speaking.

“Which is why I will be forwarding your nomination to act as my personal representative,” Henrietta declared. The smile on Agnès’ face disappeared and was replaced by incredulous bewilderment.

“What? Me?” Agnès asked, and Henrietta smiled and nodded.

“Who else do I trust more? Besides, you are certainly qualified, if I do say so myself,” Henrietta declared and, as she expected, her bodyguard began to shake her head fervently.

“Princess, while I am tremendously honored you trust me with this task, I must decline,” Agnès protested. “My duty is to protect you, and I cannot do that by leaving your side.”

“I have other bodyguards,” Henrietta pointed out. “Besides, I’ll have both the Pope’s personal escort as well as the entire Tristainian Navy and an army watching over the Academy. I will be perfectly safe.”

“But, Princess—” Agnès tried to counter, only for Henrietta to forcibly cut her off.

“Agnès, please,” Henrietta gently said, bringing Agnès to a stunned silence. Henrietta then continued, “You are my most trusted servant and friend, and I know that even if everyone else fails, you’ll get her back. Even without magic, you’ll find a way. So please, do this for me?”

Agnès looked at her princess for a few moments, torn between her loyalty and duty. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she knelt into a bow and hung her head.

“Princess Henrietta, I graciously accept this task on your behalf,” Agnès proclaimed. “With the Gods as my witnesses, I shall return Louise de la Vallière to Tristain safe and unharmed. I will guard her life as I would your own. You have my word.”

“I know you will,” Henrietta replied, giving her bodyguard a warm smile as she stood up from the bath to accept her kneeling champion’s oath, standing as regally as she would in the most auspicious of royal ceremonies, clad in raiment of water and light.

~

_September 16 th, 1998 7:00 PM_

_Hiraga Family Apartment_

_Raccoon City, Arklay County, United States of America_

Saito smiled expectantly as the latest movie he and Louise were watching ended, accompanied by a deep, metallic heartbeat score that served to inspire a sense of dread yet also awe at the same time. As with _Star Wars_ , Louise had been enraptured by it from the very beginning, yet he could tell she was far more disturbed by what was shown. He supposed that was only to be expected. _Star Wars_ was PG, after all, while _The Terminator_ was a solid R-rated flick.

“So,” Louise finally began after a few moments of silence, prompting Saito to turn down the volume on his room’s personal TV, “the United States made Skynet to…control its military.”

“Yep,” Saito affirmed, and Louise continued.

“Skynet then became self-aware and set off Judgement Day, killing almost everyone.”

“That’s right.”

“The survivors rallied behind John Connor who led their war against Skynet, a war that humanity ended up winning. To save itself, Skynet sent a Terminator…back in time,” Louise summarized, tilting her head in confusion as the entire concept of time travel was very much alien to her, “to kill Sarah Connor, the mother of John Connor.”

“Correct.”

“But, to stop this from happening,” Louise continued, her face scrunching up more in visible confusion,   
“John Connor sent a trusted soldier, Kyle Reese, back in time to protect his mother. Only for Kyle to actually be John’s father, which John knew before sending Kyle back. Meaning that if Skynet never sent the Terminator back in time to kill Sarah Connor, John Connor would have never existed in the first place…nor would Cyberdyne have found the remains of the Terminator, thereby starting the process leading to Skynet’s creation…”

“Yeah, that about sums it up,” Saito confirmed with a quick nod. Louise stared at the TV for a few moments, then looked up incredulously at him.

“So…what came first? Skynet or John Connor? Was there always a time loop, or was there an original timeline?” Louise asked, completely lost.

“No one knows,” Saito admitted and shrugged. “Time travel’s confusing. I say just roll with it.”

“But I want to know,” Louise earnestly declared, raising a finger in emphasis. “I _need_ to understand how this happened!”

Saito smirked at Louise’s fervent plea for a moment, then he shrugged again and replied, “Personally, I think that there was an original timeline where things went more or less naturally. Sarah met a guy, had a kid, named him John, only for Skynet to show up later on. Judgement Day happened, and the original John Connor led humanity to victory, forcing Skynet to use time travel to save itself. When the original Kyle Reese was sent back in time, _he_ ended up getting Sarah pregnant instead, and she named him John because that’s what she was told the name of her kid was. The new John Connor was thus raised to lead the human resistance, starting the process all over again and creating a stable time loop. That make sense?”

Louise looked at him for a moment, then shook her head and answered, “Not really, no.”

Saito shrugged, then declared, “Yeah. As I said, time travel’s confusing.”

“That it is…” Louise quietly muttered under her breath. The two teenagers sat on the bed together in silence for a few moments, Louise pinching her chin in thought as Saito looked at her expectantly.

“Well?” he finally asked after a few moments. “What did you think?”

Louise hummed as she collected her thoughts, then looked up at Saito and admitted, “It was good. Very thrilling but…a lot more intense than _Star Wars_. The idea of something hunting you down relentlessly, not stopping no matter what you do to it…that’s terrifying to me.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.” Saito nodded, then asked, “What was your favorite part?”

Unlike _Star Wars_ , Louise had an answer in mind immediately and answered, “Sarah and Kyle falling in love. It was so…romantic.”

Louise sighed contently, blushing slightly as she gently grasped her cheeks and smiled. Saito snorted, figuring that Louise found their romance the most appealing aspect of the film.

“Personally, I thought the best part was the T-800 itself,” Saito admitted, causing Louise to gasp in surprise.

“What? How could you say that? It was the bad guy!” she pointed out, and Saito’s smile grew.

“Yeah, but it’s _so cool_!” Saito gushed. “The way it just goes in, guns glazing, shrugging off everything the police, Kyle, and Sarah throw at it. It’s a one-man army, and it’s _amazing_!”

As Saito’s eyes glistened in excitement, Louise looked up at her friend with narrowed eyes. After a moment, she sighed and shook her head. She certainly couldn’t see the appeal behind such an emotionless golem, or machine as Saito’s people would refer to it, slaughtering everything in its path to murder an innocent woman. Had it been Kyle being the one-man army, she would have understood perfectly. Louise had grown up with tales of such exploits, both the real from her mother as well as the imagined, such as the famous folk tale The Hero of Ivaldi, across its many versions. But they were the heroes of the story, not the monsters which needed to be slain.

Still, as she laid back across the bed, her thoughts drifted towards another aspect of the film that had taken her for a loop. Particularly, the weapons that the Terminator and Kyle Reese used. She had known for some time now that Earth’s weaponry completely eclipsed that of her own, but only now did she get a taste of what that truly meant. It was mind-boggling to her, and terrifying.

“Saito,” she quietly began, “those…guns that the Terminator used. Are they…real? Do they work like that in real life?”

Saito looked at her, and with an oblivious smile towards her emotional distress, he nodded.

“Yep,” he enthusiastically declared. “Once Kyle and the T-800 went back in time, every gun they used was real. Sure, a little movie magic was involved, but for the most part it was accurate.”

“So…you really have guns that can fire more than once?”

“Oh yeah, most of them in fact,” Saito answered. “The days of single-shot weapons are long gone. We got all kinds of guns here. Bolt action, lever action, pump action, semi-auto, full-auto. The list goes on.”

Louise stared at Saito as she laid across the bed on her back, then sighed and sat upright before admitting, “You know, we have firearms back home, too, but they’re just muskets that can only fire one shot.”

“Oh,” Saito said, finally understanding where Louise’s head was at. Wincing at his own ignorance, he added, “Yeah, I can see how going from muskets to machine guns would be a huge jump.”

Louise shook her head and laughed, then revealed, “You know, before I got here, I didn’t even give guns a second thought. Figured they were just a thing for commoners but, unless you got lucky, couldn’t hold a candle to a proper mage. But, after seeing them in action, even in just a movie…”

Louise trailed off, and Saito pursed his lips. Before he could say anything, though, Louise steeled her face and looked at Saito, then said, “Still, I am curious about them.”

“…Really?” Saito asked, slightly perplexed. “Why? I would have thought you’d want nothing to do with them.”

“Oh, to be sure, if your world’s weapons came over to mine, it could completely disrupt our entire society,” Louise admitted. “It could very well result in anarchy and chaos. But, if handled _properly_ , these guns could secure Tristain’s independence. To me, that’s worth the risk.”

Saito thought it over for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, I see what you mean. Even if you could just replicate bolt actions, it would throw everything else you guys have out of the water.”

“Exactly,” Louise declared, then pointed at him. “Tomorrow, I’d like to go to the library and check out some books on firearms. That way I can—”

“Actually, you’re in luck,” Saito cut her off, standing up and placing his hands on his hips. “Because, Louise, you’re living in the same apartment as a complete gun nut.”

“…Meaning?”

“I think guns are cool, and I have a ton of magazines about them in my room,” Saito flatly stated.

“Oh,” Louise replied, then stood up and began looking around. “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s pull them out.”

Saito nodded, then began fishing around his room for the magazines in question. Unfortunately, given that it had been so long since he had touched them last, it was quickly proving difficult to find even one. After a few minutes of him looking through drawers and cabinets, Louise decided to help as well. Together, the two of them searched every nook and cranny of his room, trying to find the magazines so that Louise’s curiosity would be satiated.

Finally, reaching deep into his underwear drawer, Saito felt the edge of a magazine, and with a victorious cry he pulled it out and declared, “I found-!”

“Saito,” Louise coldly cut him off. Surprised, Saito turned towards her, only to see that Louise’s back was turned against him. She was facing his bed, her entire body rigid as she held something in her hands that he couldn’t see. Then, as she turned around and held up a magazine, Saito’s heartbeat began to quicken as she asked, “What is this?”

Saito looked at the magazine depicting a scantily-clad woman on the cover alongside the logo of a white rabbit head, then up at Louise’s unreadable face. Her bangs were covering her eyes, and a dark cloud of miasma seemed to envelop her. The shadows themselves appeared to stretch, and Saito knew he was very much in danger.

Gulping loudly, Saito awkwardly chuckled and asked, “Oh, uh, that…Where’d you…find it?”

“Under your bed. Is there a _reason_ why it was hidden there?” Louise dangerously demanded, gripping the magazine tightly.

“I’m, uh, holding it for a friend,” Saito answered, but as Louise glared daggers at him, he could tell that she didn’t believe him in the slightest. Beginning to panic, he quickly admitted, “Okay, yes, it’s mine, but I only read it for the articles! I swear!”

Whatever hope he had that Louise would accept that answer died as she glared wrathfully at him, and all he could do was whimper as Louise took in a deep breath and prepared to shout.

~

In the living room, Satoshi and Sakura Hiraga sat blissfully on the sofa, watching the late-night news while cuddling close. After a long day at work, both at the office and at home with Louise, it was times like these that the husband and wife cherished most. Normally their son would be with them, but at the moment he was busy entertaining their newest stay. Other than the calm news reporter on the TV talking about the latest in sports, everything was quiet and peaceful.

That tranquility was shattered, though, as they heard Louise angrily shout from the other room, “YOU PERVERT!!!”

The shouting continued as Louise berated Saito over what she had found, and it didn’t take long for the parents to realize what had transpired.

“She found the Playboys,” Satoshi Hiraga calmly figured, and his wife nodded in agreement.

“I told him he should have thrown those out,” Sakura added, smiling, and shaking her head. Satoshi listened a bit more as Louise continued to castigate his son, and after a moment chuckled and shook his head in amusement.

~

_Orléans Estate_

_Lagdorian Lake, Gallia, Halkegenia_

When Kirche spotted Tabitha attempting to sneak out of the academy atop her dragon Sylphid, she knew something was amiss. She had known ever since Tabitha received an unmarked letter, one that she refused to let Kirche, much less anyone else, catch even a glimpse of. Whatever it said, it caused Tabitha to grow even more sullen and withdrawn than usual, and Kirche took it upon herself to figure out what, exactly, was causing her best friend so much distress. To do that, Kirche had graciously volunteered to accompany Tabitha to wherever it was she was going, and by now Tabitha had learned that attempting to dissuade Kirche was only an exercise in futility.

That being said, even after several hours of flight, Tabitha had barely said a word. By now the sun was beginning to rise over the horizon, and the pair were flying over the waters of Lagdorian Lake near the border of Gallia and Tristain. Kirche couldn’t help but notice that the lake itself appeared to be severely flooded, including an entire village submerged under water, but she pushed that observation away for another time. Right now, she had more pressing concerns.

“You know you can talk to me, right?” Kirche said, leaning forward to speak into Tabitha’s ear. The blue-haired girl didn’t reply, instead focusing entirely on steering her familiar towards their destination. Sighing to herself, Kirche leaned back and closed her eyes, then muttered, “At the very least we could have some idle conversation. Watching the ground fly by gets old and boring after a while.”

“You didn’t have to come,” Tabitha reminded her, only for the Germanian girl to scoff.

“And leave you all alone?” Kirche rhetorically asked, hoping to get the Gallian girl to say something. But, alas, her efforts were in vain as Tabitha remained silent once again. Kirche groaned and hung back her head, then shifted her attention towards the horizon.

To her relief, she saw that they were headed towards the direction of a grand manor, meaning their flight was almost at an end. A thick forest surrounded it, and even from here she could tell that it was quite well-maintained and extravagant. But, as they flew closer, her eyes settled on a symbol emblazoned above the front entrance. It was a blue shield surrounded by thick gold, with two gold lines crisscrossing each other in the center. Kirche recognized that symbol immediately, and with an incredulous look she turned back to Tabitha as they began to descend.

“Wait a minute. Tabitha, that’s the symbol of the Gallian royal family,” Kirche declared. “Are you…?”

She couldn’t finish the sentence, and on the surface Tabitha didn’t respond. But, after being her friend for so long, Kirche had managed to learn the subtle cues that Tabitha often communicated by. Her shoulders slightly sagged and she hunched forward by an almost miniscule amount, and despite not seeing her face, Kirche knew Tabitha had adopted a sullen expression. It was all the answer she needed, and at once Kirche knew exactly why Tabitha was here, or at least partially.

The Pope’s arrival to Tristain would be in just a few days. It was all anyone was talking about, and it all centered on exactly why he was coming. After all, the fact that he was coming to the academy so soon after Louise’s disappearance, and the immediate investigation as to what happened to her, was no mere coincidence. At the moment, Kirche still didn’t quite know why the Church was getting so involved with Louise’s disappearance. While Louise was the daughter of high-ranking nobility, that wasn’t enough to get the Pope involved, yet he did regardless. Needless to say, that caught all the other kingdoms’ attention, including Gallia’s. Since Tabitha appeared to be Gallian royalty, that gave them the opportunity to have a much closer look at what was going on.

When Sylphid finally landed, they were greeted by an elderly butler with light-grey hair, a thick moustache that edged around his upper lip down to his jaw, and a pair of glasses nestled atop his nose. He was standing at attention, a warm smile on his face as Tabitha and Kirche got off Sylphid and walked towards him.

“Welcome back, miss,” the butler announced as he gave a short, respectful bow. As he stood back up, he added, “We’ve been expecting you, Lady Charlotte. Please, come inside.”

While Kirche looked at her friend and the butler in utter bewilderment, Tabitha gave a short, curt nod then walked towards the manor. The butler opened the door for her, and once she was inside he turned to face Kirche, who remained frozen on the spot.

“You are more than welcome to enter, my lady. Any friend of Lady Charlotte is a welcomed guest in this house,” he declared, knocking Kirche out of her stupor.

“O-of course. Thank you,” Kirche replied, then hurried after Tabitha into the mansion. The butler closed the door behind her, then escorted Kirche and Tabitha, who had apparently decided to wait for her, to a nearby living room. Once inside, the butler laid a few logs into the fireplace, then set it alight by striking an iron against a piece of flint a few times. After a few strikes, the kindling was set ablaze, filling the room with light and warmth.

“If you’ll excuse me, I’ll grab some tea,” the butler declared, then gave another bow and walked out of the room. Closing the door behind him, Kirche and Tabitha were left alone, the Germanian sitting on a sofa while Tabitha stood off to the side. The only sounds they heard was the crackling of the fire and the occasional splitting of a log under the intense heat. It might as well have been deafening.

“Tabitha…what is going on?” Kirche asked, looking at her friend with pleading eyes. “Why are we here? Why did he call you Charlotte? Are you actually Gallian royalty?”

Tabitha silently looked at her friend with an almost sad frown on her face, then she turned around and walked to another door that the butler didn’t go through.

“Wait here, please,” Tabitha ordered, and before Kirche could say anything, she opened the door and walked out of the room.

“Tabitha, wait!” Kirche called out, but the door was already closed.

Sighing to herself, Kirche hung her body forward and groaned, trying to wrap her head around the sudden revelations that had sprung out of nowhere. None of this made any sense to her. First the Pope getting involved in Louise’s disappearance, then Tabitha being called to the Gallian border out of the blue, now her friend being royalty and her name not being Tabitha. Everything was moving so very fast for her, and she didn’t know what to do.

After a few minutes of silence, the door opened and Tabitha’s family butler walked in carrying a silver tray holding a teapot and two cups, balanced atop his gloved right hand. He looked around for a moment, trying to spot Tabitha, but sighed and shook his head after a quick glance.

“I see Lady Charlotte will not be joining us for now,” he surmised, then perked himself back up and walked over to Kirche. “Tea, my lady?”

Kirche looked up at him, then nodded. After everything that just happened, a soothing drink sounded lovely. Nodding back, the butler poured Kirche a cup of steaming hot tea, then handed the drink over to her. Taking the cup into her hands, she blew gently into it, then took a sip. The nourishing liquid fell down her throat, and she let out a relieved sigh as she leaned back.

“My, that was quite good,” Kirche declared, and the butler let out a short bow.

“Thank you, my lady. I am happy that the tea I brewed was to your liking,” he replied, then placed the tray on a nearby table and straightened himself. Turning back to Kirche, he said, “Allow me to introduce myself. I am the butler in charge of the Orleans family house. My name is Percerin.”

Kirche smiled and nodded, then announced, “I am Kirche von Zerbst of the Zerbst family in Germania. I am in your good care.”

Percerin nodded and smiled, then admitted, “I did not imagine, nor was I told, that Lady Charlotte would bring a guest with her today.”

Upon hearing Percerin refer to Tabitha as Charlotte once again, Kirche pursed her lips then asked, “Wait, is Tabitha’s real name truly Charlotte?”

To Kirche’s surprise, Percerin was taken slightly aback. He looked towards the door that Tabitha exited out of, then his eyes softened. He closed his eyes, sighed, and shook his head, then gently said, “So, Lady Charlotte has taken to calling herself Tabitha while studying abroad…”

Realizing that this was probably the best chance for Kirche to find out what was going on, she pressed forward and asked, “Percerin, can you please tell me what this is all about? My head is completely thrown for a loop here and Tabitha refuses to tell me anything.”

Percerin bit his lower lip and looked around before admitting, “I’m not sure if it’s my place to speak of these matters. I feel it would be best for Lady Charlotte to—”

“I’ve tried, believe me,” Kirche pointed out, giving the elderly butler a pleading look. “Please. Tabitha…Charlotte, she’s my best friend and…I’m worried about her.”

The butler looked down at Kirche for a few moments, then sighed and nodded.

“Very well,” he replied, then opened his eyes and gave her a hard look. “But, do understand that you cannot reveal this to anyone. I am placing a lot of trust in you, Miss Zerbst, and I do not wish for that trust to be betrayed.”

“I would never,” Kirche declared, her eyes growing firm. Percerin studied her for a few moments, trying to determine whether or not she was telling the truth. Then he nodded, finding her declaration acceptable, and sat down on a nearby chair.

“To start, yes. Your friend’s real name is not Tabitha. Rather, it is Charlotte Hélène Chevalier de Parterre d'Orléans,” Percerin revealed. “As you’ve already surmised, Tabitha is indeed part of the Gallian royal family. Her father was King Joseph de Gallia’s younger brother by three years.”

“Tabitha’s royalty…she never mentioned it,” Kirche softly commented, gently holding the teacup in her hands. She then looked up and asked, “Why would a member of the Gallian royal family study abroad? I mean, yes the Tristain Academy of Magic is the premier institute of magical learning in the continent, but surely her father could have arranged for private tutors?”

“I’m afraid it’s not that simple,” Percerin sadly replied, then looked up at the portrait of a blue haired man above the fireplace. It wasn’t hard for Kirche to realize that the man was Tabitha’s father, and her gaze drifted towards it as well.

A sinking, ominous feeling began to fill Kirche’s gut, and she asked, “What happened?”

Percerin sighed again, then he revealed, “Despite being King Joseph’s younger brother, Duke Charles Hélène d'Orléans was far more popular. He was smarter, more adept at magic, and held this undeniable charisma that just made people like him. As such, when the previous king of Gallia passed away three years ago, the palace was heavily divided as to who should become king. It was Joseph’s by birthright, yes, but many felt that Charles was the better choice. Unfortunately, during this bitter fighting, those who wished to see Joseph on the throne took…drastic measures, and Duke Orléans was murdered on a hunting trip with his brother.”

Kirche gasped and held her palm to her mouth, but it was clear that the butler wasn’t done. He added, “After that, the conspirators went after the rest of the royal family. Two days after Lady Charlotte’s birthday, she and her mother, Duchess Hélène, were invited to a ball. During this event, a noble attempted to give Lady Charlotte a drink laced with a powerful magical poison that induces insanity. The Duchess realized this, and in her haste to protect her daughter, took the drink herself. The magic worked as intended, and the Duchess was rendered completely insane.”

Kirche’s eyes began to tear up as she heard more of the tale, and Percerin continued, “For obvious reasons, this attempted assassination was made public knowledge, and the noble responsible was executed, but the damage was done. Duchess Hélène was now so insane that she no longer recognized her own daughter. Instead, she believed that Lady Charlotte’s childhood doll was her flesh and blood. Tabitha was the name of that doll, and ever since that day, Lady Charlotte has acted like a completely different person.”

“Tabitha…” Kirche muttered as she looked towards the doorway, then back up at the butler and asked, “What happened after that?”

“Even at a young age, Lady Charlotte’s magical abilities were renowned,” Percerin revealed. “Given the terrible fate inflicted upon her family, and a desire to tie up loose ends, the palace decided to use this to their advantage. Under threat towards herself and her mother, Lady Charlotte was forced to complete very dangerous missions for the crown. Missions which, if she were to fail, would result in her mother’s execution.”

“What?! Why? Why would the king do that to his own niece?!” Kirche asked, and Percerin’s expression grew hard.

“Who did you think was the one who had Duke Charles murdered?” he pointed out. Kirche stared wide-eyed at the butler, who sighed and continued. “In any case, the palace hoped that by forcing Lady Charlotte to undertake those missions, she would fail and all their problems would be resolved.”

In contrast to his earlier expression, Percerin let out a small smile then declared, “Unfortunately for them, Lady Charlotte rose to the occasion, and with great difficulty managed to accomplish each and every unjust task forced upon her. The more missions they assigned her, each more dangerous than the last, Charlotte merely grew stronger and more powerful. With their plans not working the way they intended, the palace gave Lady Charlotte the rank of Chevalier then sent her to study abroad in Tristain, hoping to sweep everything under the rug. She hasn’t been charged with a mission since, although it appears that reprieve has ended.”

“Right…” Kirche muttered under her breath, then turned towards the door. She then asked, “Where is she now?”

“Most likely visiting her mother,” Percerin answered. “After that, she’s to receive her mission.”

“Do you have any idea what Gallia wants her to do?”

“Unfortunately, I do not, only that Tabitha will immediately accept no matter what it is, nor however dangerous and life-threatening,” Percerin immediately replied, a sad tone in his voice.

Kirche narrowed her eyes, then thought back to the timing of this visit. Her voice low, she declared, “I think I have an inkling as to what they want her to do.”

“You’re referring to the Pope’s upcoming visit to the Academy of Magic?” Percerin asked, and Kirche nodded.

“I don’t see how it can be anything but,” she revealed. Percerin looked at her for a moment, then nodded in agreement. It was clear to the Germanian girl that his thoughts were along the same lines, but at the moment all they could do was wait.

They sat there for at least an hour, calmly sipping away at tea, and chatting with each other. Their conversation centered entirely around Tabitha, both before and during her time at the academy. Or, rather Charlotte, as Kirche supposed her real name was. She didn’t know what to call her now. Did she call her by the name she used before, or the name she had given? The last thing Kirche wanted was for her friend to be uncomfortable, and she resolved to ask her when she got the chance. Eventually, the tea grew cold and empty, and after Kirche made a polite request to have some more, Percerin dismissed himself to brew another pot.

As she expected, a few minutes later, Tabitha returned to the living room, giving her and Kirche some much needed privacy. The two students looked at each for a few moments, neither speaking up and letting the fireplace fill the room with its gentle roar.

“How much did he tell you?” Tabitha asked calmly, and Kirche’s face fell into a sad frown.

“Enough,” she revealed, and Tabitha stared silently at Kirche again before nodding. “Before we get started, do you still want me to call you Tabitha, or would you rather me call you Charlotte?”

“Tabitha is fine,” Tabitha immediately answered, and Kirche nodded.

Kirche wanted to apologize on Tabitha’s behalf, but she knew her friend wouldn’t want that. Part of her was worried that Tabitha would lash out to protect her family’s most important secret, but she knew Tabitha wouldn’t do that. Knowing her, the only reason why Tabitha even left her alone with her butler in the first place was because she trusted her enough _to_ know.

“What was the order?” Kirche asked, hoping that Tabitha would let her in, even just this one time. At first, Tabitha said nothing, and Kirche was afraid that her friend would shut herself off once more, but to her relief, Tabitha began to answer.

“They’re planning a rescue mission for Louise,” Tabitha revealed, which wasn’t new to Kirche. Everyone in the academy had figured out that simply pulling Louise back to them was impossible, otherwise they would have done it already. That meant they had to go get her, but how they were going to get back was another mystery.

“I know that,” Kirche pointed out. “What does that have to do with you?”

“I’ve been ordered to participate, find out what happened, and bring back anything of interest,” Tabitha revealed, and Kirche’s eyes widened.

“You’re _what_? Tabitha, that’s insane,” Kirche replied, standing up and looking down on her friend with an incredulous expression. “I’m worried about Louise too, but trying to join her rescue mission is a horrible idea. We have no idea where Louise brought herself, assuming she’s even alive. For all we know, she could have landed in the middle of an active volcano or the tundra.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Tabitha stated, causing Kirche to shake her head in exasperation.

“Somehow I knew you’d say that.” Kirche sighed, then asked, “Okay then, how do you even plan on joining that mission in the first place?”

“I am a Triangle-class mage and a chevalier,” Tabitha answered. “One who has accomplished many tasks for the Gallian crown. I’m more than capable of serving on a rescue mission, and Sylphid would also be a tremendous help in locating her.”

“So, what? You’re just going to volunteer?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that sounds all fine and dandy. But there’s one problem: Louise’s rescue is being led by her _mother_ , Duchess Karin ‘the Heavy Wind’ Vallière,” Kirche pointed out. “Who, might I remind you, is arguably the _strongest mage alive today._ The Zerbsts and the Vallières have been feuding for generations, and even I recognize that. More importantly, she didn’t even want that handsome priest to join, and only allowed it because that was the Pope’s demand in return for his help. There is no way Karin will let _you_ , a knight of Gallia working directly under orders from the king, in as well. You might as well be announcing ‘hey, I’m a spy’ to everyone. It’ll have the same effect.”

Tabitha stared flatly at Kirche, clearly having surmised that as well. Yet, at the same time, she remained undeterred and declared, “Doesn’t matter if she accepts me or not. I’ll find a way in.”

Kirche looked at Tabitha for a moment then sighed and said, “Of course you will. Alright, what are we going to do?”

“’We?’” Tabitha repeated, raising an eyebrow slightly.

“If you honestly thought I would just let you go off on this dangerous mission without me, you’d have a better chance of convincing Karin to let you in,” Kirche answered, then began to pace back and forth while cupping her chin. Tabitha stared at her for a moment, then sighed and hung her head. She knew that Kirche was absolutely correct, and attempting to dissuade her would be futile. At the same time, a ghost of a grateful smile graced her lips, but as soon as it appeared it was gone.

“Alright, I think it’s obvious that both of us volunteering to save Louise won’t go anywhere,” Kirche talked aloud while continuing to pace. “You’re a knight of Gallia, while I’m a Zerbst, neither of which Karin would trust as far as she could throw us. Well, she actually could throw us really far… Regardless, the point is we’re going to have to sneak in, but how?”

She looked over at Tabitha, then asked, “I don’t suppose you know any invisibility spells, by chance?”

“Those don’t exist,” Tabitha revealed, causing Kirche to sigh in defeat. Before the Germanian could say anything else, Tabitha added, “I do know several disguise spells, though, but they take time to prepare.”

Kirche looked at Tabitha and hummed to herself in thought while tapping her chin, then said, “That…could be useful. Do we know how many people are coming on the mission?”

“From what I’ve been able to tell, twenty people. Eight mages and twelve commoners,” Tabitha revealed, subtly telling Kirche that her friend had been spying on the planning process from the beginning. She ignored that for now, though, as she instead focused on the plan for perhaps the most dangerous and idiotic thing she would ever do in her life.

“Right, right.” Kirche nodded, then admitted, “Well, our best bet would be to disguise ourselves as members of the rescue party. If twenty people are expected to come, and twenty-two form up instead, they would be immediately suspicious.”

“I’m pretty sure they’ll figure out our deception quickly,” Tabitha stated, but Kirche waved her off.

“We don’t need to be disguised forever. Just long enough for us to get to wherever it is they’re going until they can’t send us back,” Kirche pointed out. “No, we’re going to have to take the place of two people, make us look and sound like them just long enough to get us in.”

“Three,” Tabitha cut in, causing Kirche to look up at her in confusion.

“Three? Who else do you want to bring?” Kirche asked, raising her eyebrows.

“Sylphid,” Tabitha answered.

“Tabitha, I love you but your familiar is a _dragon_ ,” Kirche pointed out. “I’m certain we can disguise Flame as a large dog, Gods know he acts like one, but Sylphid is a completely different animal. More importantly, why would we need to disguise her as a human?”

Tabitha didn’t say anything. Instead, she walked over to a nearby window, opened it up, and banged her staff against the ground three times. A few moments later, they heard the flapping of wings, and soon Tabitha’s wind dragon Sylphid appeared in front of the window. The young dragon cooed affectionately as she rubbed her head against Tabitha’s hand, all the while Kirche looked on in confusion.

“Okay, I still don’t see—” she began, only for Tabitha to cut her off.

“Irukukwu,” Tabitha said, “I’d like you to meet my friend, Kirche.”

Sylphid looked at Tabitha for a moment in shock, then to Kirche’s surprise said, “Okay, big sister!”

“Wha-?” Kirche started, only for the dragon to look at her, coo loudly and cutely as it reached its long neck through the open window, then became enveloped in a shroud of light. The large mass of scales, muscle, wings, and claws went away, and the body began to shrink and reform. When the light died down, in Sylphid’s place was a tall, well developed human girl with long blue hair and green eyes, one who was very much naked and now leaping through the window towards her to deliver a big hug.

“Hello!” the dragon-turned-girl announced as she wrapped her naked body around Kirche, who was too stunned to really react. As Kirche slowly swiveled her head down to look at the girl, she looked up and smiled before announcing, “My name is Irukukwu, but you can call me Sylphid! Tabitha is my big sister, and you’re her friend, which means you’re _my_ friend!”

Kirche continued to stare at Irukukwu, who was now rubbing her head affectionately against Kirche’s chest. The Germanian then looked up at Tabitha, silently begging for an explanation. She could have sworn that Tabitha took a small amount of enjoyment at what she was seeing, but remained as impassive as well.

“Sylphid isn’t a wind dragon,” Tabitha revealed. “She’s actually a rhyme dragon. A child by their standards—”

“I’m only two-hundred years old!”

“-but fully sapient and capable of disguising herself as a human girl.”

“Big sister told me to never do that around people, but she told me to introduce myself by my real name, which means its fine!” Irukukwu happily added, continuing to hug and snuggle herself against Kirche. Kirche stared incredulously at Tabitha for a few moments, then looked down at Irukukwu and shrugged before patting the top of her head. The dragon girl clearly enjoyed the gesture as she cooed happily, and Kirche couldn’t help but let out a small smile before looking back up at Tabitha.

“Alright then, we’ll take the place of three people,” Kirche acquiesced.

“Yay!” Irukukwu cheered, then Tabitha calmly told her to get off her friend. With a pout, Irukukwu crossed her arms and backed away, then after Tabitha whispered some words to her, the dragon girl’s mood shifted. She smiled, gave her ‘big sister’ a tight hug, then went out of the window she came in from, turned herself back into a rhyme dragon, and flew off to wherever she was before.

“Has she always been able to do that?” Kirche asked as she looked out the window, watching as Sylphid or Irukukwu (how was she supposed to refer to Tabitha’s familiar now?) disappeared among the trees.

“Yes,” Tabitha answered. “I knew she was a rhyme dragon as soon as she was summoned. Since her species is rare and endangered, though, I felt it was best to say she was a wind dragon instead.”

“Smart choice,” Kirche admitted, then went back to pacing back and forth to continue their planning sessions. “Alright, so we’ll need to disguise ourselves as three people. Do they need to be the same gender?”

“Not necessarily, but it is preferable,” Tabitha answered, and Kirche nodded before moving on.

“We’ll shoot for three girls if we’re able, but if not we’ll improvise. Anyway, we can’t take the place of any nobles. That would…not be good, for obvious reasons, so we’ll have to take the place of three of the commoners. That leaves us twelve targets.”

“Ten,” Tabitha interjected. “We can’t touch Julio, and Princess Henrietta nominated her bodyguard Agnès to represent her.”

“You mean the blonde musketeer?” Kirche asked, and Tabitha nodded.

“If we touch either of them, it would be taken as an attack on the princess or the pope themselves,” Tabitha pointed out, and Kirche winced.

“Yeesh, that would be bad. Honestly, the more we talk about this, the more I realize it’s a terrible idea.”

“Then don’t come,” Tabitha suggested, but Kirche shook her head.

“You know I’m not going to do that. Besides, at this point I’m already a conspirator. I’m in too deep to back out now,” Kirche pointed out, then sat down and hunched over as she continued to think. Tabitha sat down next to her, and together the two mages plotted a way for them to sneak in.

After a few moments, Kirche had an idea, and she smiled as she turned towards Tabitha and said, “I think I just figured out a way to get us in.”

“I’m all ears,” Tabitha replied, and Kirche’s smile widened as she began to explain.

“Once we get back to the academy, we need to figure out who all is coming. I believe the selection should be finalized tomorrow at the latest. After that, you start prepping the disguise spells while I work on making sure our targets are…indisposed.”

“How do you plan on doing that?” Tabitha asked, and Kirche smiled as she leaned back and rested her hand across her bosom.

“You leave that to me.”

~

“Montmorency,” Kirche asked that night once she and Tabitha returned to the academy. As classes were once again on hold due to the preparations for the Pope’s arrival, their absence wasn’t particularly noted. Many of their classmates took the opportunity to head into the capital so that they could prepare as well.

“Ugh, what is it Kirche?” Montmorency asked as she held her room’s door slightly ajar, rubbing her tired eyes as she lightly glared at the Germanian girl.

“I’m not disturbing you, am I?” Kirche asked, putting on a faux air of concern. Whether she was just too tired, or simply didn’t care, Montmorency didn’t treat her with suspicion, and instead yawned while shaking her head.

“No, but it is late,” she pointed out. “Is there a reason why you’re up past midnight waking me, of all people, up?”

“Well…” Kirche began to bashfully fidget, causing Montmorency to perk up her eyebrow in confusion. She then dramatically sighed and admitted, “I’m having trouble sleeping.”

Montmorency looked at Kirche in surprise, then narrowed her eyes and said, “If this is some attempt to get me or my fiancé into your bed—”

“No, no, not at all!” Kirche denied, cutting her off. She then clasped her hands together and put on as much of a begging expression as she could, then declared, “I was hoping that you could brew me some sleeping potions.”

“Sleeping po-? Why would you want that? More importantly, why’d you come to _me_ for them? Why not ask one of the teachers? I’m certain they’d help you,” Montmorency replied, and Kirche let out a smile.

“Well, I heard that sleeping potions just put you right to sleep, and lately I’ve just been spending all hours of the night wide awake no matter what I do.”

“You haven’t looked tired,” Montmorency pointed out, only for Kirche to wave her off.

“Proper applications of makeup can hide many things,” Kirche replied, wiping off some of the make-up on her face to reveal the heavy bags under her eyes. Montmorency’s eyes widened as she took in Kirche’s state, telling the Germanian that her ploy was working. She hadn’t slept in over a day just to make herself look as tired as possible, and even now she was swaying slightly from real exhaustion.

“Oh my,” Montmorency muttered, then Kirche gave her a final, pleading look.

“Montmorency, please. You’re the best potion brewer I know,” Kirche declared, appealing to Montmorency’s sense of pride. “Do you have anything that can help me?”

Montmorency looked at Kirche for a moment, then gestured for her to wait and went back into her dorm. Kirche couldn’t help but smile victoriously as she heard Montmorency shuffle through her drawers, the clittering and clacking of glass telling the Germanian that her classmate was going through each and every potion she had. Finally, after a few minutes, Montmorency came back to the door, prompting Kirche to fall back to her tired, pleading look.

“Here, take this,” Montmorency told her as she handed Kirche a small bottle holding a dark blue liquid. “It’ll put you right to sleep.”

“Oh, you’re a life-saver,” Kirche said, then asked, “Is this all you have?”

“At the moment,” Montmorency admitted, then added, “But I can make more tomorrow if you need it.”

“If you could, please.”

“Of course. I’m free tomorrow, so I’ll get started right in the morning.”

“Sounds perfect,” Kirche replied as she turned around. Before Montmorency could close the door, however, Kirche whispered, “Oh, by the way. I’m still kind of embarrassed by this, so if you could, you know, sneak the potions to me…?”

“Sure, I understand,” Montmorency answered with a nod. “Good night, Kirche. Let me know how the potion works.”

“Will do. Good night.”

Kirche smiled and nodded towards Montmorency, who nodded back and closed her door. Kirche looked at the wooden threshold for a few moments, then smiled and began walking back to her dorm, tossing the potion bottle up and down in her hand. As soon as she got into her bed, she changed into her nightwear and laid down on her soft bed. Happy that everything was going to plan so far, Kirche safely stowed the bottle away in her nightstand drawer. She might have been heavily exaggerating her condition to Montmorency, but she was extremely tired at the moment. She was ready to pass out without any medical assistance, and merely needed to collect two more doses from Montmorency after thanking her for how helpful her potion was.

As soon as she sprawled elegantly into her bed, everything went black as Kirche von Zerbst fell into a deep sleep.

[~][~]


	6. Chapter 6: Left and Right Hands, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As plans are finalized over in Halkegenia, Louise and Saito's calming days in Raccoon City come to a terrifying end, and their nightmare begins.

**Familiar Evil (ZnT/Resident Evil)  
Chapter 6: Left and Right Hands, Part 2 **

[~][~]

_September 17 th, 1998 7:00 PM_

_Raccoon City High School_

_Raccoon City, Arklay Country, United States of America_

Louise sat with Mr. and Mrs. Hiraga on the metal bleachers, watching as the Raccoon City High School baseball team, the Warriors, played a game of baseball against the Harris High School Bears. At first, Louise had found the idea of sports, including baseball, to be confusing. There were physical games back home in Tristain, sure, but they were simple and mostly relegated to being commoner pastime. Games such as archery, wrestling, cricket, horse racing and more, which were either meant for personal entertainment only or simply non-violent ways for soldiers to practice their skills. Either way, those games were viewed as commoner activities, and outside of horseback riding, Louise didn’t really concern herself with them.

But here in the United States, sports were an almost inescapable part of life. Seemingly the entire country was obsessed with them, offering multiple ways to view and play them. Large, expensive stadiums were built to accommodate thousands of fans, games were broadcast live over television across numerous sports networks, and live commentators described the events over the radio. While she and the Hiragas were only at a high school baseball game, the overall sentiment was still there.

“So, where is Saito?” Louise asked as she took a drink from her bottle of Coca-Cola, looking around to try and find her friend. She was still cross at him after finding the dirty magazines under his bed, but that anger, embarrassment, and a small amount of jealousy that she desperately buried deep beneath those first two emotions had faded somewhat.

“He should be up soon,” Satoshi Hiraga answered as he smiled and clapped enthusiastically while one of the Warriors hit the thrown baseball with his bat, sending it flying into the outfield where one of the Bears attempted a diving catch. The effort was just shy of successful, with the ball landing on the grass and bouncing out of reach. By the time it was recovered, the runner had already reached second base, but a hard throw to third forced him to remain there.

Despite not particularly caring about sports, Louise had to admit that baseball was somewhat entertaining and, more importantly, easy to understand. It helped that, in addition to Saito being a military nerd, as he called himself, he was also a member of his high school’s baseball team, specifically one of their pitchers. While he had come up to the plate and hit the ball a few times over the past few innings, he hadn’t yet been called up to replace the Warrior’s starting pitcher. Given how tired the young boy seemed to be getting though, she anticipated that happening by the end of the game.

“I’m glad you were able to come with us, Louise,” Sakura Hiraga proclaimed as yet another Warrior stepped up to the plate. A ball was thrown and the batter swung his bat, but unfortunately the ball curved to the side at the last moment, giving him a strike. The crowd audibly winced, and Sakura added, “Ooh, that was a tough one.”

“How’d it curve to the side like that?” Louise asked as yet another curveball was thrown, with the result the same as the last.

“It’s how they grip it. You’d be better off asking Saito after the game, though. He can actually do it,” Satoshi answered as he took a handful of popcorn and threw it into his mouth.

Louise nodded, finding the answer acceptable, then turned back to the game just as the third ball was thrown. As with the other two, the batter swung and missed, and the empire declared him out. Visibly disappointed, the young boy ran back to his dugout, allowing the next batter to step up to the plate.

“Ooh, there’s Saito! He’s up next!” Sakura excitedly shouted, pointing to her son as he left the dugout.

Wearing a dark blue uniform, with the number “22” emblazoned in white along the back and the word “Warriors” across the front, a dark blue and white helmet, and finally a pair of white pants, Louise had to admit he looked quite good in it. If he had noticed his parents cheering, he wasn’t acknowledging it as instead he focused on observing his teammate go to bat, taking practice swings whenever he could. Regardless, Louise found herself focusing entirely on him, only to notice from the corner of her eye that Saito’s parents were smirking approvingly. With a furious blush erupting across her face, Louise forced herself to look away, instead focusing on the batter in front of him.

“Are you having fun?” Satoshi asked, and after a moment Louise nodded just as a ball was thrown, this time just to the inside of the batter’s box. As such, the hitter didn’t swing, giving him a ball.

“It is…enjoyable,” Louise admitted, taking another sip of her drink. “It’s certainly much more complex than the sports I have back home, but I can certainly see the appeal.”

“Well, baseball is America’s pastime,” Satoshi pointed out with a shrug. “It was popular back in Japan, too.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes. It’s one of the many things that brought America and Japan together, even after the Second World War,” Satoshi pointed out and smiled, and Louise nodded back before turning back to the game.

At the same time, the mention of a Second World War brought a pang of apprehension to her. She knew what it was; there were entire books on the subject, and what she had learned painted a haunting picture. How it started, the major events that occurred within it, and how it was ended on both the European and Pacific Fronts. The whole planet engulfed in total war, leaving entire countries desolated and millions of people dead, and the creation of weapons that had the potential to destroy the world. It was the deadliest war in Earth’s history, one that had far-reaching consequences that were still felt even fifty years later.

Despite the scale being so far above her head that it was difficult to fully contemplate, the causes behind it were all too familiar. Especially how an absolute madman seized control and started the country of Germany down a path of barbaric militarism that went far beyond nationalism and into the realm of pure evil. From what she could tell, however, the Empire of Japan went along similar lines as Nazi Germany, and while Saito was visibly uncomfortable about that aspect of his heritage whenever it came up, she didn’t know how his parents felt about it. She wasn’t going to ask them, though, as it would be rude and inappropriate at best, and outright insulting at worst. Regardless of whatever their home country did, they were proudly Japanese, and she would accept that without undue judgement.

A smack of a bat hitting the ball brought her attention back to the field, where she saw the baseball fly out towards the outfield. The hitter was sprinting as fast as he could towards the first base, however the runner on second base was only barely leaving his. Instead, he was keeping his eye on the ball, and before Louise could ask why, she got her answer as the ball was caught before it hit the ground. Immediately the second baseman ran back and dove to safety, his hand gripping the top of second base just as the second baseman caught the ball and tried to tag him out. The umpire declared him safe, and as the runner stood back up the ball was thrown back to the Bears’ pitcher.

“Ooh, I get it,” Louise said as Saito stepped out to the plate. “He was making sure that the ball wouldn’t be caught. If it was, and was thrown to second base before he got back, he’d be out and the inning would be over.”

“Exactly,” Sakura confirmed, giving Louise a smile and thumbs up. “You’re catching on quick.”

Louise smiled back at her caretaker and nodded, then turned back to watching her friend play the game. The Warriors were up by two runs with only one inning left, so Saito wasn’t under any game-breaking pressure. At the same time, he was clearly taking this seriously, and he settled into a stance to ready himself. The Bears pitcher stared him down, and after a moment wound up, pulled his arm back, and hurled it towards Saito. Saito’s eyes never left the ball, and just as it began to curve away from him, Saito reached out and swung his bat as hard as he could.

A dull crack went out as the wooden bat made contact, and the ball flew out high towards the outfield. The fielders ran out, trying to reach out with their arms outstretched, but it was in vain as the ball landed outside the chain-link fence. The home bleachers, including Saito’s parents and Louise herself, erupted into cheers as Saito achieved a home run. With a victorious smile on his face, Saito tossed his bat to the side and began to jog around the bases. By the time he returned to home plate, the runner on second was waiting for him, and the two teammates congratulated each other before running back to the dugout and receiving another round of cheers and pats on his back.

Louise continued clapping and cheering towards her friend until the next batter stepped up to the plate. As she sat down and the bleachers around her began to calm, she found herself looking towards the Warrior’s dugout once more. This time, she and Saito managed to lock eyes, and he flashed her a warm smile and thumbs up. After a moment, Louise smiled back, then returned her attention back to the game that she was very much enjoying.

~

_Tristain Academy of Magic_

_Kingdom of Tristain, Halkegenia_

Practically the entire academy was waiting outside as the Romalian fleet escorting Pope Vittorio flew closer. The front courtyard was arranged as extravagantly as possible, filled with banners, carpets and more. Covering the walls was a small army of soldiers and mages, all of whom were on high alert for anyone wishing ill intent towards the academy. Never before had Julio Chesaré seen the academy in such a state, but at the same time he knew exactly why. He had to hand it to Tristain. Despite how suddenly these latest events occurred, they managed to arrange quite the warm, and secure, welcome for His Holiness. Normally a papal visitation took months of preparation. This time they did it in just a few weeks.

At the front of the welcome procession was Princess Henrietta de Tristain, with Cardinal Mazarin and Headmaster Osmund standing to her right. To her left were the Duke and Duchess Vallière, all of whom were dressed in all the finery they had available. Julio himself was waiting near the front gate of the academy, waiting for the Pope to arrive whereupon he would begin escorting him properly. All around them, behind lines of guards, were the academy students and faculty who were excitedly talking among themselves. Some openly wished they could get the chance to speak to the Pope, while others maintained that would be impossible. Julio personally thought that, once the mission was underway, the Pope would likely make time to take confessions and other holy duties, but there was no reason to make that declaration on His Holiness’ behalf.

The excited murmuring of the students and faculty increased as the lead Romalian airship stopped just outside the academy’s walls. Several anchors were thrown down, locking it in place while workers already assembled on the bottom grabbed ropes that were thrown as well. Working together with mighty pulls, the airship was lowered until it was finally at rest along the makeshift dock that Tristain had assembled. Compared to normal ports such as La Rochelle, it was quite crude in construction, mostly made out of wood with magically-carved and reinforced stones to give it extra support and visual flare. But it got the job done, and once again due to the lack of proper time to truly prepare neither he nor the Pope could blame them.

If anything, the fact it looked as good as it did was to be commended. It truly spoke to the skill of the artisans the kingdom was able to bring in on such short notice.

Once the airship was safely docked, a stepped ladder was lowered onto the dock. At once a plethora of guardsmen carrying polearms and sword wands marched out, surrounding a tall figure at the very center. Everyone knew exactly who this person was, even if they couldn’t get a proper look at him just yet. Once the procession disappeared from view, Julio took that as his cue to walk towards the gate, where he and a few others pulled it open.

As the first of the Romalian guards entered the Academy grounds, Julio announced, “His Holiness and Holy Emperor of Romalia, Pope Vittorio Serevare St. Aegis the 32nd!”

The guards parted and lined up along the sides of the red carpet rolled out for them. The whispers around the academy hushed and were replaced with reverent silence as they beheld the warm smile of Pope Vittorio. A young, long-haired blond man barely in his twenties with bangs reaching down across his chest, Pope Vittorio was wearing a dark red and gold pallium over a purple chasuble layered on top of white robes. Atop his head was the gold and purple papal crown, and in his hand was the winged papal staff which doubled as his magical focus. His eyes appeared warm and kind, yet also deeply concerned as he beheld the Vallières waiting for him next to the princess. Without saying a word, he began walking towards them, the students all bowing out of respect. Even the princess and those around her bowed once the Pope drew near, as was expected of them. Julio was beside his master the whole way, and once they came to a stop in front of Princess Henrietta, the young girl began to speak.

“You honor us with your presence, Your Holiness,” Henrietta proclaimed. “Especially in these trying times. My sincerest apologies for not doing more. We tried our best, but—”

“There’s no need to apologize, Princess,” Vittorio declared, cutting Henrietta off. “My departure for Tristain was done hastily, given the urgency of the matter at hand. You nor Tristain was expected to accommodate me as per usual. Still, given what you have accomplished on such short notice, you bring yourselves great honor in the eyes of the Gods and the Founder.”

“Thank you, Your Holiness,” Henrietta replied, her head still bowed.

Pope Vittorio warmly smiled towards Henrietta, then walked over to stand in front of the still bowed Vallières. His smile warping into a sad frown, he told them, “On behalf of the Brimiric Church, the Vallière family has our deepest sympathies. To have a daughter taken in such a manner is something no parent should ever have to experience. You have my word that we will do everything in our power to ensure that Louise de la Vallière is returned safely.”

“Your assistance in our time of need is most appreciated, Your Holiness,” both Duke and Duchess Vallière spoke in unison. “We are forever in your debt.”

“There is no need to give thanks just yet,” Vittorio demurred with a gentle wave of his hand. “Let us first ensure Louise’s safety.”

Pope Vittorio moved on to speak to Headmaster Osmund, and Julio allowed his attention to drift away as he focused squarely on the Vallières. While it was clear to everyone that they truly were grateful for the Pope’s direct aid, there was a hint of suspicion and distrust in their eyes, especially Karin’s. They were both subtly watching the Pope in only ways that experienced and battle-hardened soldiers could. Julio figured why they both felt this way. Both of them likely took the Pope’s involvement as indirect confirmation as to Louise’s Void mage status, and their distrust was borne out of concern for their daughter’s safety. The last thing anyone wants is for their child to be used or targeted, and being a Void mage led to a high possibility of both.

Julio truly sympathized with them, but knew that there wasn’t anything they could do. Louise was far too important, even more than they realized. Halkegenia’s fate quite literally depended on Louise’s Void magic, otherwise they would all be doomed.

Once Pope Vittorio finished his introductions, he turned back around and requested that he be led to the scene of Louise’s failed summoning ritual. Both he and everyone else were eager to get this matter resolved as soon as possible, and the less time they spent on ceremony, the better. Clearly everyone else felt the same, and soon the Pope was being led through the academy grounds towards the plaza where the second-year students performed their summoning rituals. With classes canceled for the foreseeable future, the students were told to go about their business. Most dispersed without question, but a few attempted to get a closer look at what the Pope and the others were doing. They were prevented from getting too far as guards ushered them away, and soon they were left alone.

With guards watching over the area, the whole Vallière family, Princess Henrietta, her bodyguard Agnès, Cardinal Mazarin, Headmaster Osmund, Professor Colbert, Pope Vittorio and Julio himself looked over the still intact summoning circle that Louise had drawn just prior to her disappearance. One of the first things the teachers did was magically preserve it, figuring that doing so would greatly assist in learning what had happened to Louise. While their efforts were ultimately in vain, it would still be useful in setting them down the correct path.

“This is where it happened, yes?” Vittorio asked as he closely inspected the summoning circle, kneeling to rub his fingers over the chalk lines.

“Yes,” Colbert answered, his face marked with an almost ever-present frown. At the very least he had finally cleaned himself up, but Julio knew even now he was wearing a mask to try and hide his true feelings of guilt and regret. No one was fooled.

“Can you describe to me exactly what happened?” Vittorio requested as he stood back up and turned towards them. “I know you sent me the details in your letter, Cardinal, but I’d like a more personal explanation.”

“Of course, Your Holiness,” Colbert replied, then straightened himself. “At first, everything was proceeding as usual. Students would come up, chant the summoning spell, then bind their familiars to them, whatever they happened to be. Louise was the last student to make her attempt. She had been…hiding from it, so I initially missed her until Miss Zerbst pointed her out.”

“I see,” Vittorio mused, lightly rubbing his chin as he began to pace in front of them. “Am I correct in assuming that her reluctance to cast the spell so openly was due to a history of what was deemed to be magical failures?”

“Yes,” Karin answered, the stony look on her face screaming years’ worth of regret and shame. “Ever since she was a child, each and every attempt to cast a spell resulted in an explosion.”

“I thought as much,” Vittorio plainly stated as he turned to look at her. “The mark of a Void mage is an inability to cast anything else other than Void, after all.”

“What makes you so certain of that?” Pierre Vallière asked, raising an eyebrow. There was a hint of distrust in his voice, but rather than call attention to it, Pope Vittorio merely smiled and looked at him.

“Romalia has access to countless volumes of the Founder’s and his apprentices’ writings, and according to them, Void mages can only use Void magic,” Vittorio answered. “Even the Founder couldn’t cast anything else, yet it is an example of his divine brilliance that he was able to devise our magical system regardless. In any case, attempting to use another element results in failures much like the ones Louise experienced, if not always so explosive. The fact that hers were indicates she inherited the offensive form of Void.”

The others looked at each other for a moment, a flash of regret going across Colbert’s and the Vallière’s faces. Clearly they were asking themselves why they didn’t realize this before, but once again Julio didn’t blame them. Church teachings had insisted for thousands of years that only Brimir could use Void magic, so the possibility had never crossed their minds except for heretical thoughts that they quickly brushed aside. Right now, Julio cursed that decision as this might not have happened had they noticed the signs earlier, but it couldn’t be helped now.

“While this certainly explains a lot,” Éléonore admitted, “how did this cause Louise’s reverse summoning?”

“In just a moment,” Vittorio said, then turned back to Professor Colbert. “Was Louise, at any point during the summoning, stressed? Overly anxious? Under tremendous pressure?”

“She was, yes,” Colbert confirmed. “Had she failed her summoning, we would have sent her home. Needless to say, she did not want that, which was why she tried three times to summon her familiar.”

“Yes,” Vittorio muttered, then asked, “What summoning spell was it that she used? Was it the same as all of the other students’ chants?”

“No, it was heavily modified,” Colbert admitted.

“Do you remember it? Word for word?” Vittorio asked, and when Colbert nodded he requested, “Repeat it to me, please.”

Colbert looked around to see everyone else staring at him, then he cleared his throat and began to repeat what Louise had said. It had happened over a month ago, but even now he remembered it as though it had just happened.

“Louise’s first two attempts were the standard summoning spell, but the third was when the spell was reversed. She said, ‘My servant that exists somewhere in this vast universe. My divine, beautiful, powerful familiar! I wish and assert from the bottom of my heart! Answer my guidance!’ After that, the spell exploded, and she was nowhere to be seen.”

“Hmm,” Vittorio hummed and tapped his chin, then turned towards the Vallière family. “Where did she learn that spell?”

“We have no idea,” Karin admitted. “I already had our servants comb through our personal library for that spell, and they found nothing.”

“I did the same at the academy, and the only times that spell came up was in ancient scrolls that hadn’t been touched in centuries,” Osmund added. Vittorio nodded, having already come to that conclusion, then he turned towards Princess Henrietta.

“I assume that the same applied for the royal archives?” Vittorio asked, then pointed out, “Given you and Louise were childhood playmates, the palace would be the only other logical place she would have seen it.”

Henrietta shook her head, then replied, “Unfortunately, we couldn’t find it there either.”

“Unless Louise managed to somehow find an ancient scroll and use it without us knowing about it, we don’t see how she could have learned it,” Osmund concluded. “Honestly, before we found those scrolls, we thought she made it up on the spot.”

“No, she did not,” Vittorio stated. “The spell that Louise used was a specialized summoning ritual meant only to be performed by Void mages. It’s more powerful than the standard spell, and when combined with her obvious emotional distress, it backfired horribly.”

Karin’s frown slightly deepened, then she stated, “So it would seem. But, that doesn’t answer the question as to how she learned that spell in the first place.”

“I believe I have an answer to that,” Vittorio admitted, then turned towards Princess Henrietta. “Princess, do you have the Founder’s Prayer Book on you right now?”

“Yes, I do,” Henrietta confirmed, then motioned for Agnès to hand the holy artifact over to the Pope. He gratefully took it, and with excess care he opened it up. The others leaned in to get a closer look, but to their dismay, it was entirely blank.

But the Pope wasn’t done, and he held out his hand towards Henrietta then requested, “The Water Ruby, please.”

Perking an eyebrow in slight confusion, Henrietta did as requested. She slid the ring off her finger and handed it to Pope Vittorio. Rather than slip it onto his own finger, he held the gemstone close to the Prayer Book. At first, nothing happened, but then to everyone’s surprise the page they were on began to glow. Ancient runes inked out of pure light emerged on the paper, leaving the others astonished.

“That’s the spell Louise cast,” Colbert realized after he looked them over. The only reason why he was able to translate them so quickly was because he had already done so in the academy’s archives.

“Those runes…” Éléonore muttered as she studied them closely. “They’re the language of the Founder!”

“That they are,” Vittorio confirmed. “In fact, they’re his words exactly, written by his own hand six thousand years ago. Words that can only be revealed when one of the Founder’s rings, such as the Water Ruby, is held by a Void mage.”

As the others went silent in surprise, Vittorio looked up to stare at Princess Henrietta. He then asked, “When you were still playmates, did you ever show off the Founder’s Prayer Book to Louise along with the Water Ruby?”

Henrietta visibly struggled to remember, but after a moment her face paled. Trembling slightly, she nodded and said, “Yes…I did. The last time we played together. Louise wanted to see them, so I…”

She trailed off and began to sniffle. Agnès and Cardinal Mazarin were on her immediately, trying to console the despondent girl while the others stared at them with wide, shocked and horrified eyes.

“As I suspected,” Vittorio mused, then turned to look at the others. “I believe we have our answer. Several years ago, young Louise came into momentary possession of the Founder’s Prayer Book and the Water Ruby during a play session with the Princess. Since she was, indeed, a Void mage, the magic reacted as intended, revealing to her the familiar summoning spell she used that day.”

Henrietta, with tears in her eyes, looked up at the shocked Vallières and proclaimed, “I am so-!”

“It’s not your fault, Princess,” Pope Vittorio forcibly interjected. “It isn’t anyone’s fault. What happened was a freak accident that came about due to several factors converging together all at once at the most inopportune moment. Blaming ourselves isn’t going to solve anything. All we can do now is work to rectify the problem and bring Louise back home.”

The others looked at the Pope, then Cardinal Mazarin’s eyes narrowed. He pointed out, “That book revealed its contents to you as well.”

“That it did, yes,” Vittorio replied.

“Then that means…?”

“It means I am a Void mage as well,” Vittorio confirmed. The others stared incredulously at him, then Vittorio motioned for Julio to walk closer to him. When Julio did as his master requested, the Pope continued to explain, “Like Louise, for much of my life any attempts I made at casting spells simply did not work. Mine didn’t explode like Louise’s, rather they simply failed to cast. Despondent, I threw myself into my religious duties, which eventually attracted the notice of the papacy. When the previous pope died three years ago, I was elected into his position as the youngest pope in the Church’s six-thousand year history. Once I achieved this position, I came into contact with Brimir’s holy artifacts, including the Founder’s Mirror, which is where I learned the truth.

“The truth is, Void mages can only truly be revealed if they come into contact with one of the Founder’s artifacts, each held by one of the royal families. His Prayer Book, his Music Box, his Incense Burner, and finally his Mirror. Otherwise, they’ll go entirely unnoticed. As the mirror was held by Romalia, it revealed to me my true heritage, a heritage that the church was aware of. Hence my election. The final confirmation came when I attempted to summon my familiar, for you see, the final mark of a Void mage is what type of familiar they must bond with.”

Vittorio solemnly nodded towards Julio, who gently took off his right glove and showed the back of his hand to everyone. At once their eyes were drawn to the ancient, elaborate runes branded into him.

“The familiar summoned by the mage reveals what their affinity is,” Julio explained. “For a Void mage like my master, they can only summon a human being. I was rescued out of a Romalian orphanage three years ago when Pope Vittorio summoned me, and I became the Windálfr, the Right Hand of God, capable of controlling any animal.”

“When the Founder died, he divided the power of Void equally among all four Kingdoms,” Vittorio added. “By the end of his life, he believed that the power of Void was too great to be wielded by one man. Whether it has been passed down through the royal bloodlines continuously since then or reemerged only recently is, unfortunately, unknown to us. I am inclined to believe the former, personally. Regardless, Louise is undoubtedly Tristain’s Void mage just as I am Romalia’s. Had she successfully completed the summoning ritual as intended, she would have summoned a human who would have become the Gandálfr, master of all weaponry. Instead, Louise accidentally brought herself to whomever her familiar was, and unless she knows the proper spell, will be unable to return.”

Shocked beyond words at the series of world-shattering revelations being dropped upon them one after another, Princess Henrietta and the others’ jaws were slightly ajar. They looked despondently at each other, their faces holding a myriad array of questions, revelations, and mixed feelings about everything they had just learned. Julio felt it only understandable as he slipped his glove back on. After a few moments of almost crushing silence, they managed to calm themselves enough to turn back to the Pope and Julio, eager to move things forward.

“So, that’s why you’re so interested in saving my daughter,” Karin de la Vallière surmised. “Because she’s a Void mage.”

“One of four, yes, and only the second we definitively know about,” Vittorio confirmed. “At the moment, we do not know the identity of Albion’s nor Gallia’s Void mage, so we need to ensure that the ones we do know are secured.”

“And what do you plan to do with my daughter once we do?” Duke Vallière asked, this time more forcibly.

“Rest assured, we do not have ill intentions towards your daughter,” Vittorio attempted to placate the Duke and his family. He raised his left palm in a calming manner, then added, “We only wish to ensure her safety. As a Void mage, she’ll have a target on her back wherever she goes, either from within the kingdoms or from the elves. They _despise_ Void mages, and if they were to find out your daughter is one and she’s unprotected…”

He trailed off, but his unstated warning was understood by everyone. The Vallières’ faces paled in horror before Karin’s warped into a wrathful scowl, one that promised nothing more than pain and suffering to those who would dare lay a finger on her daughter. It was a look that Julio approved of. Any parent worth their salt should react the same way when their child was threatened.

“How do we get Louise back?” Henrietta asked, and Vittorio nodded before flipping through the Founder’s Prayer Book once again.

“First, I need to see the proper spell,” Vittorio admitted, sending the others slightly aback.

“I thought you already knew it?” Éléonore accused, her voice rising slightly from anger, but Vittorio hushed her with a raised finger.

“I knew the ritual needed to get Louise back and how to learn the spell itself,” Vittorio clarified. “But the spell I need is in this book. Since I am a Void mage, it should—”

Vittorio was cut off as another page came alight. Ancient runes once again emerged from a blank page, this time written differently. Not even Colbert could understand what was being said, but Vittorio’s eyes grew blank for a few moments, then the light subsided and his eyes returned to normal.

“World Door…” Vittorio muttered, causing the others to look at each other in confusion before looking back at the Pope.

“What just happened?” Éléonore asked, and Vittorio looked up at her as he handed both the Water Ruby and the Prayer Book back to Princess Henrietta and Agnès, respectively.

“The Founder’s Prayer book working as intended,” Vittorio answered. “It revealed to me the spell needed to get Louise back: World Door. With it, I will be able to open a doorway to another world, the same one that Louise brought herself to.”

Karin and the others were sent aback once again, then she demanded, “What do you mean, ‘another world?’”

“Your daughter is not on Halkegenia,” Vittorio revealed as he turned around and aimed his staff out in front of him. “Nor is she on this planet. You see, the Founder cast a spell in his life that bound our world to another, one where magic does not exist. Based off the spell Louise attempted to cast, there is no doubt in my mind that was where she ended up. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to cast the spell now.”

Karin’s eyes widened, and she reached out and proclaimed, “Wait, we’re not-!”

“My intention isn’t to send us through now,” Vittorio clarified. “Merely to test and see if the spell works. I obviously haven’t cast it before now, and the last thing any of us want to do is to go blindly through a spell without seeing if it works or not.”

Karin blinked for a few moments, then stepped back and nodded at the sound logic. The others nodded as well, and they all stepped back to give the pope enough room. Julio also felt that they were nervous and wanted to put as much space as possible between them and whatever the end result of this spell would be. He didn’t blame them, as he was very much tempted to do the same thing. To their credit, both Karin and Agnès had placed themselves at the front of the group, and all of them, especially Jean Colbert, were looking on with curious, if a tad bit frightful, faces.

Then the Pope began to chant in an ancient language, one that Julio couldn’t hope to understand nor follow. The words sounded artistic, almost flowery yet at the same time incredibly precise. Less of a poem and more of a mathematical equation. At first, nothing happened. Then sparkling energy began to coalesce at the end of Pope Vittorio’s staff. Everyone, even Julio, gasped at the sight, yet the Pope continued to chant. He chanted for several minutes, seemingly without end, and each passing moment made the gathered energy grow larger and larger. First it was the size of a small ball, then an apple, and now it was the size of a man’s head. Finally, after at least ten minutes of chanting, Vittorio finished the spell and launched it forward.

The ball of magic flew out a few feet in front of the Pope, where it hovered in place then rapidly expanded. A large circular doorway several carriage-lengths in diameter emerged. At first, the surface was closed and nothing more than a light green swirling mass, then the image began to clear. What was beyond the world door was revealed to all present, and everyone, including Vittorio himself, felt their eyes go wide and their jaws hang in astonishment.

“By the Founder…” someone said. Julio wasn’t certain who. It might have been him, but he wasn’t concerned about that. All his attention was focused squarely on the vast cityscape displayed in front of them. He of course knew that the other world was far more advanced than anything on theirs, even the elves, but seeing was entirely different than just being told.

The portal had emerged on top of a large building that oversaw a vast, expansive city. One far larger and more organized than anything Halkegenia had, with the possible exceptions of the capitals. Even then, that was up for debate. Their angle made looking at the ground below difficult, but they could tell they were high up. Higher than any building in Halkegenia. As Julio expected, much to his disappointment all the same, Louise was nowhere to be seen. It would have been far too easy for the World Door to open up right in front of her. All the same, he focused his attention on the wonderous scene before him, trying his best to absorb it all in the short time they had.

“The buildings…they’re made of glass,” Henrietta rapturously whispered. “It’s…beautiful.”

“Look how tall they are,” Éléonore added, her eyebrows as raised up as they could possibly be. “They’re practically scraping against the sky…”

A strange flying object flew by in front of the portal. It wasn’t a dragon nor pulled by any animal. Far faster than one, too. Instead, it looked somewhat like a tadpole with spinning blades on the back of its tail and atop its body. Colbert’s attention was immediately focused on it, more specifically the loud noise and smoke coming out of it.

“That’s a machine,” Colbert muttered. “I…I don’t think they’re using windstones. Are they using those spinning blades to fly?”

“Amazing…” Julio heard himself say. It was hard not to be amazed at what he was seeing, especially since it was accomplished entirely without magic.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Pope Vittorio flash a quick scowl. Unseen by the others, it quickly went away. A few moments later, the spell fizzled out of existence as the magic dispersed. Then Vittorio’s strength failed and he fell to his knees. Julio was on him immediately, helping him up and resting the Pope’s weight on his shoulders.

“Your Holiness, are you alright?” Princess Henrietta asked. The others, clearly concerned, rushed forward to provide aid, but the Pope held up his hand to stop them. Breathing and sweating heavily, he shook his head then managed to stand up on his own two feet, although it clearly took him much effort.

“No, I am quite alright,” Vittorio asserted. “That spell…it took a lot out of me. Far more than I would have anticipated. That could pose a problem.”

“How so?” Colbert asked, and Vittorio nodded towards the professor as he began to explain.

“My hope was that I could send you and the rescue party through then pull you back myself. I already know a scrying spell that I can use to monitor your situation, so once you found Louise I could cast it again where you were,” he declared. “Unfortunately, the spell takes up too much of my willpower. I’m afraid I won’t be able to cast another spell for several days, at least. My deepest apologies.”

Karin sighed and shook her head, then replied, “It’s quite alright. We were already planning on having Louise learn the spell to return us anyway. This changes nothing.”

“Still, it would be good to have a backup plan, just in case Louise can’t learn the spell for whatever reason,” Agnès pointed out, then turned towards the Pope. “How long do you think it would take to cast the spell again?”

Pope Vittorio hummed as he thought about the question, then answered, “Given how much strength it took out of me, I suppose I could be ready in just a few days, although a week would be preferable.”

“So eight days, then,” Agnès surmised with a nod. “Alright, I think we should stick to the original plan. Pope Vittorio opens the World Door with the Founder’s Prayer Book and the Water Ruby in hand. Once we find Louise, we give her the artifacts and hope she can learn the spell quickly. If not, for whatever reason, we hold out for a week until Pope Vittorio can open another portal.”

“That sounds like a reasonable plan to me,” Karin replied, nodding in approval. Julio did as well. Despite being a commoner like himself, it was clear that Agnès had a good head on her shoulders. He supposed it was why Henrietta trusted her so much, enough to go on a mission to another world even.

“That sounds perfect to me,” Vittorio added, then swayed threateningly to the side. As Julio helped him stay upright, the Pope tiredly proclaimed, “I believe it would be best for me to retire to my private quarters for now. I am more tired than I anticipated.”

“Of course,” Headmaster Osmund replied. “We already had a private dormitory set up for your use. I’ll have one of our maids escort you.”

“I appreciate your kindness, Headmaster,” Pope Vittorio said with a warm, tired smile.

With that, the group began to disperse, Julio helping the pope along towards the grand castle that was the Tristain Academy of Magic. More of the pope’s guards joined them, their careful eyes watching everything as though there was a threat just out of sight. As they entered the building, a young maid around Julio’s age with long brown hair greeted them. With a reverent bow, she happily escorted the two men and their guards through the hallways and up a few flights of stairs. Eventually, they found themselves in a luxurious suite, one that was freshly made and extravagantly decorated. While the papal palace’s room was far larger and more accommodating, this was still nice as well.

“Please let me know if either of you need anything,” the maid proclaimed.

“We’ll be fine for now. Thank you,” Pope Vittorio replied. The maid respectfully nodded, then closed the door and walked away.

Julio and the Pope listened through the door until they could no longer hear her. Once they were certain that they were completely alone, with only their guards standing watch just outside, the smile on Julio’s face dropped and he turned back to the Pope with a small frown on his face.

“You didn’t tell them everything,” Julio accused, his voice lowered so that the guards didn’t hear him through the wooden door, and sitting atop his bed the Pope merely sighed as he removed the weight of the papal crown from his head.

“What else was I to tell them?” Pope Vittorio replied as he raised his hands questioningly. “That the world Louise pulled herself to is dangerous, filled with terrifyingly powerful weapons and ruled by our ancient enemy, the Varyag?”

“Along those lines, yes,” Julio said with a vigorous nod. “As well as that world being the true homeland of the Founder and the Markey. _Our_ homeland. Not to mention how you could have used the Founder’s Mirror to get them to the Holy Land and recover Louise instead of both of you learning the World Door spell.”

“We’re already taking a massive risk by sending the Founder’s Prayer Book with them. It would be unwise to send two holy artifacts, and there was no need to tell them when we have a safer alternative. Besides, revealing the truth about the Holy Land wouldn’t have accomplished anything useful,” Vittorio dismissed. “If anything, it would have thrown our plans into question had they known.”

Julio sighed, knowing exactly what His Holiness was referring to. He then asked, “You still want to do it?”

“Believe me, I don’t _want_ to,” Vittorio sadly replied, a frown on his face, “but I see no other option. The windstones are growing out of control. At most it’ll only be a few decades until they break the continent apart, dooming us all. The only way we can save our people is by taking the Holy Land and moving all of us there.”

Julio frowned as he asked, “Are you even certain we _can_? You and I have both seen the weapons they are capable of making now. Weapons that make the most powerful mages _and elves_ seem tiny in comparison, and that’s only the surface of what they can do. You’re asking us to invade an entire planet that we know nothing about. Not the terrain, not the people, nothing but a glimpse of the terrifying power they wield. What we just saw is the most we’ve ever seen of them, and the scale of that city alone gives me pause. Maybe we could have a century ago, but now? After what they started making in the past few decades? I’m less sure.”

“We have no other choice,” Vittorio insisted. “Nothing can stop the windstones’ unchecked expansion. Either we flee, or we perish. There’s no other option available to us.”

Julio sighed and hung his head. He had this exact conversation with the Pope numerous times before, and each time he was reminded of the necessity of what they needed to do. It made him sick to his stomach at times, but it was as his master said. The only way they could save the people of Halkegenia was to take the Holy Land. But, to do that, they needed Louise and all four Void mages brought together alongside their familiars, the rings, and the Founder’s artifacts. Otherwise their efforts would be doomed from the start.

“Very well,” Julio yielded with a long, heavy sigh, and he felt Vittorio place his hand comfortingly atop his shoulder.

“I know this pains you, Julio,” Vittorio declared. “You’re a good man, pure of heart and honorable. A better man than me, even. You’re not made for bloody conspiracies, but know that of the pain you feel in your heart, I bear as well tenfold. I would not do this if I had no other option, believe me.”

Julio looked up at Vittorio, then replied, “I know, master, and thank you.”

Vittorio smiled and patted his shoulder a few times, then sat upright and adopted a more serious expression. Julio did the same, and the Pope declared, “Still, regardless of the dark task we need to undertake, we shouldn’t do so blindly. Louise’s unfortunate reverse summoning affords us an opportunity to observe the Holy Land more closely. To gather information, see their capabilities for ourselves, then adjust our plans accordingly.”

“Of course, master,” Julio replied, then added, “I’ll be sure to make note of everything I see.”

“I know you will,” Vittorio proclaimed. He then pursed his lips in thought, looking to the side for a moment, then requested, “Also, Julio, if you by any chance see anything that can help us turn the tide in our favor…?”

“I understand,” Julio answered with a nod.

He knew exactly what the Pope was asking for. After all, the weapons of the Holy Land were far above anything Halkegenia or the elves could produce. If they made something that they could use to ensure Halkegenia’s victory in their upcoming crusade, it was imperative that Julio secure it. Even a small advantage could mean the difference between victory and death.

Vittorio nodded, then his face fell into a sad frown. Lowering his voice to barely a whisper, he said, “Also, Julio, although it pains me to say it, we must address the possibility that Louise may not want to return. Her life here was, admittedly, rough, and given her familiar is from the Holy Land, she may have grown close to it. While I am certain we can convince her of the necessity of our crusade should she return, if she will not…we must ensure that Tristain’s Void magic returns to Halkegenia. By any means necessary.”

Julio looked at the Pope, horrified beyond words. Yet, at the same time, Julio recognized the necessity of the dark command. Although Julio would want nothing more than to return Louise to safety, alive and well, he couldn’t risk the lives of millions on just one. It would break and damn his soul to the darkest pits of Hel, but if he had to, he’d do it without a second thought.

“I will, master, but I don’t think it’ll come to that,” Julio declared.

“I hope you’re right,” Vittorio replied, and the room fell into a deep, suffocating silence that seemed to stretch on for eternity.

~

_September 20 th, 1998 4:30 PM_

_Raccoon Cinema Movie Theatre_

_Raccoon City, Arklay County, United States of America_

Saito and Louise stood in front of a line of movie posters, trying to determine which one they wanted to see. There were plenty to choose from, from the most anticipated summer releases to even homegrown indie offerings like _Disaster_ , _Bad Luck Game_ , and _Air Combat 1942_. Neither of them were really interested in those, though. For as much as Saito was proud of calling Raccoon City his home, the local productions never quite rose up to the same level as those straight out of Hollywood.

“Hmm, _Armageddon_ … What’s that about?” Louise asked as she pointed to a poster depicting two men and a woman over a planet seemingly on fire. She had no idea what it was about, but with such a biblical title, she could only assume it was quite grand in scope.

“It’s about an asteroid hurtling towards the Earth, so NASA sends a team of oil drillers to plant a bomb in its core to blow it up,” Saito answered, and Louise looked at the poster with heightened curiosity.

“That sounds interesting,” she admitted.

“Sure, if you want stupid, mindless fun,” Saito replied, smiling slightly. “I went and saw it with a couple friends of mine when it came out. Had a blast.”

“Oh, so it’s good?”

“Nope!” Saito answered, his smile widening as he shook his head. “It was _so_ stupid! There were so many things wrong with that movie, and it was amazing! Especially my friend’s reaction. He’s super into astronomy, and I swear by the end he was about to blow a gasket! He ranted for like an hour once it ended, and it was hilarious!”

“…How can it be bad but good at the same time?”

“Think of it like a trashy romance novel,” Saito answered, figuring that like most of the girls he knew Louise had read one or two of them in her life. From the blush that emerged on her face, his guess was accurate.

“…Ah, I see,” Louise replied, although her tone was still a little unsure.

“If nothing else, we’ll have a good time watching it. So, let’s leave _Armageddon_ as a backup,” Saito offered. After a moment, Louise nodded, then the two teenagers went back to looking at the offered viewings. He then spotted a red and black poster depicting a cloaked man with a sword behind a flaming “Z.”

Recognizing it immediately, he pointed to the poster and said, “Ooh, _The Mask of Zorro_. I know for a fact you’ll love that one.”

“What’s it about?” Louise asked, and Saito turned to her while lowering his voice to an epic baritone.

“A freedom fighter was cruelly imprisoned and his wife murdered simply for defending the innocent, and after twenty years he escapes to free his kidnapped daughter and avenge his wife all while training his protégé to take up his mantle,” Saito revealed. Louise cooed in anticipation, the tale seemingly right up her alley. But before she could decide, she had to look at the rest of the offerings.

The Raccoon Cinema offered dozens of movies that day, all of which seemed interesting to her. She didn’t know what they were about, though, so she could only make assumptions based off of what Saito told her as well as the posters themselves. After watching several of Disney’s animated movies, including her favorite thus far _The Lion King_ , she figured that their latest offering _Mulan_ would be thoroughly enjoyable. _The X Files_ looked creepy to her, which she wasn’t the biggest fan of. She barely got through _Alien_ and _Aliens_ , although she had to admit they were wonderfully made. _Gone with the Wind_ also looked like it would be something she’d enjoy, although she doubted Saito would. She practically had to force him to watch _Titanic_ with her, and _Gone with the Wind_ appeared to be another romance film.

Of course, after bawling her eyes out at _Titanic’s_ ending alongside Saito and his parents, she wasn’t much in the mood for a romance movie, either. So she moved on, trying to find something that both of them would enjoy. Finally, she settled on a poster depicting four faded men in the clouds watching over the silhouette of a soldier running across a dark ground. It was titled _Saving Private Ryan_ , and after a moment she recognized the time period it was set in from the uniforms the men were wearing.

“Oh, that’s a World War II movie, isn’t it?” Louise asked as she pointed to the poster. Saito took one look at it and winced, then nodded.

“Yeah, but…” he began, and Louise narrowed her eyes.

“But what?” she asked, and Saito looked around nervously for a bit before looking back at her.

“I haven’t seen it yet,” he admitted, “but a few of my friends from school have. They told me it was great but…very, very intense. Like, the most intense thing they’ve ever seen. Very ‘realistic in its depiction of war,’ apparently.”

“Hmm,” Louise hummed as she studied the poster a bit more. As she rubbed her chin with her fingers, she pointed out, “I like realism.”

“Uh, are you sure? From what my friend said, I think it’s a bit too intense for you,” Saito replied. That had been the wrong thing for him to say as Louise shot her head towards him, scrunching up her face and scowling.

“I think I’ll be the one to judge whether or not something is _too intense_ for me, Saito,” Louise proclaimed with an offended huff, then closed her eyes and looked away. “I’m not ignorant of war. My mother and father both fought against Germania when they were younger, bringing honor and glory to our family. I’d be very much interested in seeing what they might have gone through.”

“Eh, I don’t know…” Saito muttered, but upon seeing Louise’s infuriated glare, he sighed and relented. “Fine, let’s go see it. But don’t get mad at me if it’s too much for you.”

“It won’t be,” Louise declared, then haughtily pointed at him. “Perhaps I should be saying the same to you? Your country hasn’t been invaded in centuries, while Halkegenia has wars practically every year. I’m far less delicate than you are.”

Saito narrowed his eyes at her. He knew she was baiting him, and he allowed it to work. Nodding at his friend, he turned around walked towards the ticket counter, bought two tickets to the next showing, then entered the concession line to buy their popcorn and drinks. By the time they got into their seats, the trailers were already underway, and the entire theater was packed full of people.

Shoveling popcorn into her face, Louise stated, “I think this is going to be great.”

“Probably will,” Saito admitted as he took a sip from his straw. “When you get squeamish, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“I’ll be fine. Besides, how bad can this honestly be?”

~

Nearly three long hours later, the movie theater emptied. Silent, shocked patrons, including Saito and Louise, walked out into the sidewalk, ruminating over the tableau that they had just seen. Saito’s friends were right. _Saving Private Ryan_ was the single most graphic thing he had ever seen. Countless men dying horrific deaths, their limbs blown off from explosives and machinegun fire, drowning under the weight of their own equipment. And that was just the opening scene. The rest of the film served to only highlight the brutality of war, and only now did he really get a sense of what those brave men went through.

For Louise, though, her reaction was even more stark. Gone was the haughty bravado she displayed at the beginning. Instead she was completely silent, staring blankly ahead as she tried to process the disturbing imagery. He couldn’t find it in himself to brag about having told her so. He was just as disturbed, and made no effort to hide it.

Eventually, they found themselves at their bus stop. It was just them sitting on a metal bench, a light rain trickling down around them and the plexiglass roof over their heads. For a few minutes that seemed to stretch on into eternity, neither of them said anything. Both clearly wanted to say something, but neither of them could find the words.

Finally, Saito gently said, “Okay, that was…intense.”

“That’s one word for it,” Louise quietly replied, looking down at her feet as she twiddled her fingers together. “I think I understand now why my mother and father don’t talk about the battles they fought.”

Saito was still for a moment, then nodded and admitted, “I can see why. That wasn’t glorious or honorable…it was just hell. Pure and complete hell on Earth.”

“Was that what my parents had to go through?” Louise wondered aloud, and Saito grimly nodded.

“Or at least something like it.” He drew quiet once again, and aside from a faint, whistling wind and the rushing of ongoing traffic, not a sound was heard. After a few moments, he added, “I think the worst part was how Mellish died, and how Upham was too terrified to do anything.”

“He was a coward who got his fellow soldier and friend killed. Had Upham done something, _anything_ , Mellish could have lived,” Louise angrily spat.

Saito nodded, then admitted, “Yeah. Still, can’t say I blame him. I think anyone would have been terrified in his position.”

“That doesn’t make it right,” Louise declared as she stared at Saito. After a moment, she hung her head back down again and sighed before adding, “Honestly, I still can’t understand why Private Ryan refused to leave. Here comes a whole squad of soldiers who walked through Hell to bring him to safety, and he says ‘no, I’m staying here?’ Ryan had a chance to go home and leave the war behind, but instead he got nearly everyone else killed.”

“Maybe,” Saito said as he looked out into the street and rested his hands on his thighs. He then asked, “You saying that because you honestly believe it, or are you speaking from personal experience?”

Louise looked up at Saito, then answered, “If someone came to bring me home to Halkegenia, I’d go without a second thought.”

“Even if doing so would leave the people you care about to die?” Saito rhetorically asked. Louise didn’t respond, and Saito nodded before continuing, “I don’t know whether Ryan was right or not. Staying to help his squadmates caused the others, including Captain Miller, to die. But I understand _why_ he refused. He cared about his teammates like family, and you don’t just leave family to die.”

Louise pursed her lips as she thought it over. She supposed Saito had a point. If her family was in danger, she doubted she could just up and run so easily. Still, if she had a chance to go home, she’d take it. There would be no hesitation. Yes she would be sad to say goodbye to Saito and his parents, and she would rather have some way of keeping in contact with them, but it’s not like she’d be abandoning them to some horrible fate just to save herself. Luckily for her, she wasn’t in a life or death situation like Private Ryan. Life in Raccoon City was a far cry from the Western Front.

After half an hour of waiting, their bus finally arrived and rolled to a stop in front of them. Without saying a word, they hopped on then took their seats next to each other, eager to get home after a long day. As she settled into her seat next to the window, Louise flinched at the blaring sound of sirens approaching, and turned her head to watch as a line of police cars and an ambulance sped past their already pulled over bus. She frowned in concern as she watched them rush to some unknown emergency deeper in the city, their flashing red, blue, and white lights refracting through the raindrops falling down the window glass.

~

_September 22 nd, 1998 5:30 PM_

_Arklay Forest_

_Raccoon City, Arklay County, United States of America_

Today was the day. After nearly a month of constant practice and experimentation, with a fair amount of successes and failures, Louise finally felt confident enough to try her hand at summoning her familiar again. Neither she nor Saito knew what, exactly, would happen or whether it would work. Nor did they know what Louise’s familiar was supposed to be. By now he knew the basics of what a familiar was and what it was supposed to reveal about the mage, but he wasn’t really focused on that.

Instead, he was focused on what might happen afterwards, assuming their theory was correct. If Louise successfully summoned her familiar, whatever magic that brought her to Raccoon City might very well send her back home to Tristain. Going back home was everything Louise had been working for ever since he met her, and on the one hand he was excited. He could only guess how he’d feel if the situation was reversed and he found himself in Halkegenia, but most likely he’d want nothing more than to get back home to his friends and family.

At the same time, however, Saito couldn’t shake the sad pang in his heart. For as much as he was excited at the prospect of Louise finally going home, he didn’t want to see her go. They’d only known each other for a short time, yet Saito was confident in calling her his best friend. He certainly hadn’t grown so close to someone else before, and he was certain Louise felt the same towards him. From the look on her face, Louise was feeling the same mixture of conflicting emotions as he was.

“Well,” Saito started, breaking the long streak of silence the two had been sharing ever since they got off the dirt path and began walking towards their testing site, “what do you think it’s going to be?”

“My familiar?” Louise asked. Saito nodded, and Louise shook her head and added, “I don’t know. No one does until they summon it.”

“Anything you’re hoping for, then?”

Louise looked at Saito as they walked through the forest, taking a slightly longer but safer path. After a moment, she shifted her gaze to the side and bashfully admitted, “Well, the night before the ceremony, I kind of…boasted about what my familiar was going to be to Kirche.”

Saito raised an eyebrow. Based off their earlier conversations about Louise’s classmates, he had a fair idea as to what prompted that boast. Kirche was likely taunting Louise about her prospects, baiting Louise into lashing out in anger and frustration. He knew that feeling all too well, and he nodded before looking ahead into the forest.

“What’d you tell her?” Saito asked, and Louise closed her eyes and sighed.

“I told her I was going to summon a dragon,” Louise replied.

Saito whistled, then said, “That sounds impressive.”

Louise nodded. “Dragons are among the rarest and most powerful familiars a mage can summon. The stronger the familiar, the more powerful a mage usually is. So, by saying I would summon a dragon…”

“You were really saying you were a powerful mage,” Saito finished her statement. After a moment, Louise nodded, and Saito looked at her before declaring, “Well, you may not have summoned a dragon, but you did bring yourself to a completely different world. If that doesn’t say you’re a powerful mage, I don’t know what does.”

Louise couldn’t help but chuckle at Saito’s proclamation, then added, “I suppose you’re right. Heh, I doubt Zerbst could’ve brought herself to Earth.”

“By the way, you don’t call your planet ‘Earth,’ do you? I’ve been wondering about that lately, and if you do then things may get confusing. Or do you guys even know the concept of planets yet?”

“We do,” Louise admitted. “We call our planet Terre, although most of us believed that the universe revolved around our planet. So did I, before I came here, and now I realize how stupid that model is.”

“Don’t feel too bad. We thought the same thing until a few centuries ago,” Saito told her. “Anyway, given how you were brought to Earth, I’d bet that your familiar was an animal from here. So, no dragons, obviously, unless your spells can reach back through time and grab a dinosaur?”

There was a hopeful tone in his voice, but Louise shook her head.

“Unfortunately, the familiar summoning spell can’t do that,” Louise revealed with a sad frown on her face. After watching _Jurassic Park_ , she shared Saito’s assessment that dinosaurs were awesome, although she found the velociraptors terrifying.

“Damn, that would’ve been cool.” Saito dramatically snapped his fingers and shook his head, then looked back towards her. “Oh well. There’s still a lot of cool animals here. Earth’s got lions, tigers, bears, elephants, gorillas, alligators, crocodiles. Sharks are cool, but they tend to die when outside of water, so that’s kind of limiting. Maybe you’ll get one of them?”

“Perhaps,” Louise replied, liking the sound of any of those options. Of course, the rational part of her was thinking of the upkeep of those familiars and how expensive it would be. Not to mention how she couldn’t fit the largest of them in her room, which was what she had intended. Louise had even set up a bed of hay for her familiar the night before.

She wondered what happened to it by now. Was her room untouched, or had the academy already cleared it out for someone else? Someone who had more obvious magical potential. Thoughts of the academy drifted towards her family, and she pursed her lips as she wondered what their reaction was. Were they devastated? Angry? Perhaps they were even trying to find a way to get her back. But, what worried Louise the most was the possibility of them being relieved she was gone. After all, she was a black mark on their family legacy. The daughter of two square-class mages, one of whom was the most powerful mage Tristain had ever produced, unable to perform magic at all. Her family was already planning on marrying her off just to get her out of the way, so they might have viewed her reverse summoning as a way to wash their hands of her.

“Louise, you okay?” Saito called out to her, snapping Louise out of her thoughts. She shook herself and looked up to Saito, who had a concerned look on his face. She fervently nodded her head, but Saito merely frowned.

“Alright, but…if you need to talk to me, I’m here,” Saito told her.

Louise looked at Saito for a few moments, then nodded. She tried to dismiss her anxieties regarding her family through force of habit, but that annoying voice at the back of her head refused to go away entirely. She forced herself to ignore it, then continued walking through the forest. Soon, the two teenagers found themselves at their testing site. The signs of their presence was easily seen, from the burnt grass and fallen logs reduced to piles of splinters alongside shattered rocks. Both of them had lost count of how many hours and chickens they’d spent here, and now all their efforts were coming to fruition.

Possibly for the last time, Saito pulled out and set up his camera. That sad yet hopeful look appeared on both of their faces, but they shook them away to focus on the task at hand. Once the tripod was set up and the camera in position, Saito hit record then stepped back slightly. He’d rather watch this through his own eyes than through a camera lens.

At the same time, he was keeping a close eye on their surroundings, an added sense of nervousness creeping through him. Something seemed off about the forest now, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. It felt as though someone or something was watching them, off in the shadows just out of sight. Over the past few days, that feeling had only intensified, especially after they caught sight of a man shambling towards them in the forest while watching a recording from a few days ago. He was so far away that they didn’t notice him while they were out there, and even when they fully zoomed in his image was so blurry that any details were impossible to make out. The only thing they could tell was that the man was thin, and his skin appeared to be a pale, almost deathly grey.

Needless to say, the fact that they didn’t notice him until well after the fact got them both on edge. They almost didn’t return to the forest, but working on Louise’s magic was far too important, and it was too risky to do it on their roof. So they continued going out, although Saito now kept an eight-inch kitchen knife strapped to his belt in a leather sheath he bought for it. The last thing he wanted was to pull it out, but he would if he had to.

“You ready?” Saito asked once he was sure that the area was secure.

Louise looked at him then nodded and announced, “I am.”

“Alright, let’s see what you get,” Saito encouraged.

Louise nodded again, then took out a can of white spray paint and began to draw a summoning circle. Once it was complete, she tossed it away, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. After a few moments, she opened her eyes and raised her wand above her head, then began to chant. She thought about using the standard spell that everyone else used, but given how both of her attempts with it didn’t show any results, she instead decided to go with the one that did. Besides, that chant brought her to Earth, so it had a much better chance of getting her home.

“My servant that exists somewhere in this vast universe,” she began, not noticing Saito scrunch up his face as her words began to echo.

“What the Hell?” he muttered, looking around to try and find the source of the echo. But he couldn’t and the only person speaking at all was Louise.

“My divine, beautiful, powerful familiar! I wish and assert from the bottom of my heart!”

While Louise continued to chant, oblivious to Saito’s confusion, he stepped in front of the camera, looking around aimlessly. Then Louise finished the chant and declared, “Answer my guidance!”

After that, it all happened at once. Her back turned to Saito, Louise twirled her wand above her head then aimed it in front of her. At the same time, a familiar green portal appeared before him. With wide eyes, he recognized it as the same thing he saw when Louise first arrived at Raccoon City, and before he could say anything, the portal swallowed him up. The next thing he knew, there was a loud explosion and he was falling, then he slammed into the grassy ground.

Both he and Louise were coughing as the smoke dissipated, and once it dispersed she opened her eyes and saw him laying in the middle of the summoning circle.

“Uggh, goddammit it…” Saito groaned as he rocked back and forth along the ground.

“Saito?! Are you alright? What are you doing?” Louise asked, her eyes wide and her body frozen in shock. “Why are you in my summoning circle?”

“Uggh, I don’t know,” he admitted as he started pushing himself up. This got Louise out of her stupor, and she quickly rushed forward to lend assistance. Sitting upright, Saito continued, “One moment I was behind you, the next I was falling!”

“What? Falling?” Louise repeated, then looked up to try and find where he’d fallen from. There wasn’t a single branch above their heads, and with an utterly baffled look on her face she asked, “Where? _How_?”

“I don’t know!” Saito reiterated. “This entire thing was just weird! As soon as you started chanting, I started hearing an echo!”

Louise shot her head down towards Saito and asked, “You heard an echo?”

“Yes! Then this portal thing showed up!” Saito revealed, throwing his arms up into the air.

“…Portal?”

“Yeah! The same kind I saw when you got here!” Saito clarified. So wrapped up in his confusion, he didn’t even notice Louise’s face begin to pale, then he added, “Next thing I know, it swallows me up whole, there’s an explosion, and I’m falling! Just what the Hell happ—”

Saito stopped as he finally noticed Louise’s face. The two teenagers stared at each other for a few silent, tense moments, then Saito muttered, “…Oh. Oh, shit…”

“Saito…” Louise quietly began, her voice quivering slightly, “I think…you’re supposed to be my familiar…”

“…Huh?” Saito shot up and grasped Louise’s shoulders, completely confused. “What do you mean _I’m_ your familiar?!”

“I don’t know, but I clearly summoned you!” Louise pointed out, but even she found it hard to believe. Almost shocked beyond words, Saito looked around to try and find an explanation, then noticed his still standing camera, the red recording light on.

“The camera! I stepped in front of it during the chant,” Saito revealed as he rushed over to it, Louise right behind him. He stopped the recording and began to rewind to the start of the summoning ritual. At first, everything was normal, then as the chant continued, they saw Saito step into frame, completely lost and confused. Once the chant ended, there was a brief flash of light as Saito disappeared, then a large explosion rang out, covering the site in black smoke. At the very top of the screen, however, they saw a flash of blue as Saito’s body fell through the air towards the ground.

Shaking, the two teenagers looked at each other, their eyes wide and at a loss for words. After a few moments, Saito asked, “How did you…? I thought you said only animals could be familiars?”

“That’s what they’re supposed to be!” Louise proclaimed as she backed up and gripped her head tightly, trying to make sense of it all. “Humans don’t become familiars!”

“Yet, somehow, you got me!” Saito reminded her, then paused and thought it over some more. His eyes widening, he then added, “Wait a minute. That chant…that wasn’t the first time I heard it…”

Louise shot her gaze up to him, and she asked, “What do you mean?”

“That first portal I saw. Before it popped up, I heard someone speaking to me. It sounded like a girl,” Saito revealed, his voice trailing off before he slowly turned his eyes towards her. “Now that I think about it, it…sounded like your voice…”

Louise’s eyes widened even more, and she muttered, “Oh…”

“Louise, were you…trying to summon _me_ when you brought yourself here?”

She was silent for a moment, then Louise took a gulp and said, “I…think I was…”

“So, had it worked as intended…you would have taken me to Tristain…”

“…I would have, yes.”

The two teenagers were silent for several minutes, neither able to speak. The entire situation was incredibly awkward, and Saito looked away while rubbing the back of his head. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he admitted, “No offense, but…while you’re my best friend, Louise, I wouldn’t say I’m comfortable being your familiar. It’s one thing to happen to an animal, but to a person…that’s a bit too close to slavery in my opinion. Besides, if we’re right and completing the ritual will send you home, I’d rather not be taken with you. No offense.”

“I wasn’t going to ask,” Louise protested. Saito nodded, then pursed his lips in thought.

“…Would you have, had it worked the first time?”

Louise wanted to answer yes, but stopped herself. Her thoughts ran wild across her mind as she asked herself: would she have claimed Saito as her familiar had she summoned him successfully the first time? Would she have asked, or would she have claimed him without a second thought? After a few moments, she scowled to herself and shook her head.

“Of course I would!” Louise declared to her best friend who was supposed to be her familiar. “What kind of awful person would I be to do that?!”

Saito frowned slightly. From Louise’s momentary pause, he got the suspicion that Louise might have been unsure about her answer. That she might have been lying to herself. She certainly seemed adamant that she wouldn’t have subjugated him blindly, and he wanted to wholeheartedly believe her. But, at the same time, he couldn’t help but wonder what if. That being said, it was clear that Louise had no such desire to do so now, so he wouldn’t hold what could have been against her. With a sigh, he shook his head and looked down at his feet.

“Well, what do we do now?” he asked, and Louise despondently looked up at him.

“I don’t know,” Louise replied. “In any case, I’m not comfortable making you my familiar, either.”

“How would that work, anyway? I know you said familiars get runes magically branded on them, but I don’t see or feel anything.”

Louise looked up at Saito. She began to blush as she remembered that key detail of the ritual, and after a moment Saito did as well. Both of their faces turned red from embarrassment, and they looked away from each other, Saito rubbing the back of his head while Louise rubbed her hands together in front of her chest.

“Right…” Saito muttered, and Louise nodded.

“Let’s just…go home, please?” she begged, looking up at her friend. Saito turned his attention towards her, then nodded.

Without saying a word, the two teenagers began packing up their site. Without the need to carry a heavy cooler filled with raw chickens, it was much easier and faster. Soon they were walking back through the forest, but the sense of awkwardness never left. Neither of them knew what to say, and the atmosphere around them was thick and tense. It was almost suffocating.

Saito didn’t know how long they had been walking, but as they neared a familiar turn towards the dirt path, they saw something step out in front of them. Even in the low light, the four-legged figure of a Doberman, the most popular dog breed in Raccoon City, was easily recognizable. But there was something off about it. The dog was walking aimlessly and twitching erratically, its head moving from side to side. Its body was also covered in red, bleeding blisters, and the muscles were wasting away.

“Oh no, that poor thing…” Saito quietly muttered, and Louise gave a sad frown.

“Rabies,” she whispered, then added, “Looks like it has wasting disease, too.”

“And cancer,” Saito pointed out. Gently grabbing Louise by the arm, he told her, “Stay away from it. We’ll call a park ranger and have them put it out of its misery.”

“I could do it right now,” Louise replied, holding up her wand. Saito looked at her and thought it over, only for the dog to stop in its tracks. Its head shot towards them, and both teenagers stopped to stare fearfully at it. The dog began to growl menacingly, and Saito slowly unsheathed the kitchen knife he had brought with him.

Suddenly, with a series of quick barks in rapid succession, the dog rushed towards them. It was moving far faster than they would have expected, given its state, and Saito pushed Louise out of the way before he dived to the side. The dog leapt through the air where they previously stood, then it turned on its heels and rushed towards Saito as he tried to push himself up. Backing away, he held the knife out as the dog leapt towards his neck, its teeth bared and ready to clamp down.

“Fireball!” he heard Louise shout. A moment later, a large explosion rang out, hitting the dog and sending it flying to the side where it impacted against a tree with a sickening crunch. Blood and gore shot out from where Louise’s spell made contact, but luckily none of it hit Saito. Her wand still in hand, Louise rushed over to Saito and helped him up, the young boy gasping for breath as his heart raced.

“Are you okay? Did it bite you?” she asked, and Saito fervently shook his head.

“No, no. I’m fine,” he assured. Louise sighed in relief, then paused as they heard the rustling of grass. Turning towards the source, to their shock and horror they saw the dog, despite having all of its legs broken and its rib cage caved-in, dragging itself towards them. A deranged, hungry look was in its eyes, and it was snarling and snapping its foaming, bloody jaws at them.

“How the hell is that thing still alive?” Saito asked, stepping back slightly. Louise did the same, yet the dog kept coming. Knowing that it was too dangerous to keep alive now, Louise steeled her gaze then aimed her wand at its head.

“Fireball,” she said, casting another explosion that popped the poor canine’s head like a balloon. Bits of bone, muscle, and brain spewed out, painting the immediate area a dark shade of red. She felt sick to her stomach, and Louise wanted to hurl, but other than a few gags she was able to keep her composure. Saito was able to do the same, although he was noticeably greener than she was.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Saito declared, and Louise nodded.

Then, as fast as their legs could carry them, the two teenagers sprinted their way out of the forest, never once looking back.

[~][~]


End file.
